Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Massachusetts on Saturday and spoke publicly to a crowd of reporters at Boston Logan International Airport following her release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Öztürk was joined in speaking by members of her legal team, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
Initially detained by plainclothes officers outside of her Somerville home in late March, Öztürk spent 45 days in ICE custody, before U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered her release on bail on Friday.
Standing next to her lawyers and part of the congressional delegation that visited her while she was in detention, Öztürk spoke at the end of the conference and thanked her fellow students, her legal team, the Tufts Grad Workers Union and those who sent her letters while she was in Louisiana.
“[The United States] is the greatest democracy in the world, and I believe in those values that we share,” she said. “I have faith in the American system of justice. This has been [a] very difficult time for me, for my community at Tufts, at Turkey. But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.”
Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, thanked some of the attorneys working in Öztürk’s case, involved judges and all those who advocated for Öztürk’s release.
“We are grateful to all of the advocates, the courts,” she said. “The judges, too, have shown great courage, from judges here in Massachusetts to Vermont to the Second Circuit in New York and beyond. They have checked unlawful executive action and have defended the rule of law.”
The other speakers echoed this sentiment and criticized Öztürk’s detention. Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk’s attorney, said the fight for other international students who have been arrested across the country will continue.
“I call on the government to focus their resources on actual threats to our nation, not talented international students, international scholars, immigrants who have been wrongly vilified and placed into detention facilities, essentially prisons,” Khanbabai said. “These immigrants make our country vibrant.”
Rose noted that the administration has not produced proper evidence to support Öztürk’s arrest and detention.
“It’s really important to keep in mind that she was never charged with any crime,” Rose said. “The government never produced any evidence that she had done anything wrong, that she had done anything anti-semitic, that she had done anything supportive of any terrorist organization.”
Pressley shared details from when she and fellow politicians Markey and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., visited Öztürk and other women detained in the Louisiana ICE facility in April. She detailed their conversation with Öztürk, who primarily focused on the accounts of other detainees.
“You carried with you in your heart and in neatly copious written notes, like the qualified researcher that you are, their stories, their fears, their urgent medical conditions, their worry that they had been abandoned,” Pressley recounted. “I was haunted by those words Rümeysa said: ‘The women here have cried aloud: Has God forgotten about us? Has the world forgotten about us?’”
Markey praised Öztürk’s courage and her words to the delegation while she was detained.
“Rümeysa’s first instinct was not to talk about her, but to talk about all those women who have still not had their rights protected. That’s who Rümeysa is. She’s courageous,” Markey said. “She’s an inspiration, and we will not forget those other women, not just there in Louisiana, but all across the country, and men as well, who are right now having their constitutional rights be absolutely compromised.”
Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, highlighted Sessions’ message about the First Amendment and due process, as it pertains to Öztürk’s case, during Friday’s bail hearing.
“The federal judge in Rümeysa’s case unambiguously stated that the government’s arrest and detention of Rümeysa raised serious First Amendment and due process concerns,” Rossman said. “He repeated that multiple times from the bench, and it is critically important that all of us listen to that repetition.”
Pressley emphasized that while this moment is an “important victory,” there is still much to be done by those who spoke at the press conference and anyone else who has shown support for Öztürk.
“Rümeysa is released on bail, but her deportation proceedings continue,” Pressley said. “Our work is not done, but we are stronger together.”
Matthew Sage contributed reporting.
