By Steve Gillis
March 28, 2025

Thousands of people converged on Tufts University on March 26 to demand that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement immediately release Tufts Ph.D. Fulbright scholar Rümeysa Öztürk from her rendition to an ICE concentration camp in Louisiana. Protestors voiced outrage at Öztürk’s Gestapo-like kidnapping by masked, plainclothes ICE agents who assaulted and zip-tied her while she was walking in her Somerville, Massachusetts, neighborhood. She was on her way to a friend’s home for an iftar (the breaking of the Ramadan fast). The shocking scene was caught on video now seen by millions worldwide.

“We need to call what happened to Rümeysa what it is, a state-sanctioned political kidnapping,” said Lea Kayali of the Palestinian Youth Movement. “She was abducted by armed agents of the state, because she dared take a stand against genocide.”

Öztürk, from Türkiye, is now one of untold hundreds of international students across the country being disappeared by ICE thugs under orders from the Trump/Musk administration for allegedly expressing views opposed to the horrific, now 18-month-long genocide of the Palestinian people being perpetrated by the U.S. and Zionist regimes. According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he is now routinely cancelling student visas, stating, “Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics [sic].” (The Guardian, March 27)

This political witch hunt of international students is in addition to ICE’s highly publicized roundup and mass deportation of tens of thousands of allegedly undocumented workers in recent weeks, including in many Boston-area neighborhoods. This follows Trump “border czar” Tom Homan’s threat to “bring hell” to Boston and other cities which have previously provided some degree of sanctuary and due process to immigrant workers attempting to shelter them from ICE’s blatantly racist kidnappings and mass jailing.

Unions weigh in

For the first time, two of Boston’s largest unions — Service Employees (SEIU), of which Öztürk is a member, and the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) — have come out unequivocally to demand Öztürk’s immediate release and an end to the ICE raids.

A March 27 statement from Dave Foley — President of the SEIU MA State Council and of SEIU Local 509, on behalf of the Delegates of the Council from SEIU Locals 509, 1199, 32BJ, 888, 1957CIR, and 3FO, representing 120,000 members in health and human services, property services, public service and higher education — reads:

“We join in solidarity with all supporters of free speech and immigrant rights in denouncing federal immigration authorities’ detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, a graduate student at Tufts and a member of SEIU Local 509. The detention of Ms. Öztürk is part of Homeland Security’s despicable effort to stifle speech by immigrants who express views that Donald Trump and his surrogates simply don’t like.

“It is no coincidence that the law invoked to justify the attempted deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, whose detainment began this assault, dates from 1952, during the height of McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare. In that disgraced era, holding opinions unpopular with the nation’s ruling Republican majority cost thousands of law-abiding Americans their reputations and careers.

“Free speech and the right to protest are the very foundation upon which the labor movement was built. Using detention and the threat of deportation as tactics to target activists is an attempt to deter us from advocating for a better world. It is intended to send a clear and chilling message that anyone who challenges injustice will be met with retribution. When a student, worker or any member of our community is punished for exercising their rights, we all suffer, and standing up against these tactics is critical to the strength and integrity of any social movement.

“This attack puts us further down a path where anyone could be prevented from speaking if the Trump administration strips them of their right to stay in this country. It is also an extension of existing attacks on immigrant communities, including attempts to dismantle Temporary Protected Status and other protections. We call on the courts to end this persecution and for our communities, elected officials, school administrators and others to join us in the streets to protest this inhumane attempt to limit the protections that are enshrined in the First Amendment.” (seiu509.org)

The BTU’s March 27 statement proclaims: “The Boston Teachers Union stands in opposition to the detention of Tufts University Graduate Student Rümeysa Öztürk, who is in the United States on a valid F-1 visa, in Somerville on Tuesday, March 25th. We are gravely concerned by the lack of communication and transparency around ICE activity in our community and the disturbing fact that her arrest was motivated by engaging in peaceful protest and civil disobedience.

“This action is part of a chilling pattern of attacks both on the immigrant community and on peaceful protest. In June, our membership passed a resolution which stated in part: ‘We in the Boston Teachers Union, as a union that represents thousands of educators in Boston, are deeply disturbed by the mobilization of security forces against peaceful protestors. … We believe that the freedom to assemble and protest are essential democratic rights for students and workers alike. Disciplining, arresting, and prosecuting students and educators involved in peaceful demonstration is fundamentally contrary to our values as a Union.’

“We call upon University, Massachusetts and Federal officials to do everything in their power to secure her release and restore democratic due process rights guaranteed under the Constitution. In the face of these disturbing events, the Boston Teachers Union will continue to defend the rights of our immigrant students and families to speak freely without fear of persecution.” (btu.org)

Öztürk’s crime – opposing genocide

While Rubio and other fascist-minded Trump/Musk administration officials allege Öztürk’s “support for Hamas” (the Islamic Resistance Movement’s elected government in Gaza), they cite her co-authorship of a March 26, 2024, op-ed in The Tufts Daily newspaper, which does not mention Hamas. Rather, the op-ed calls on Tufts University administration to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, apologize for University President Sunil Kumar’s statements [wrongly equating anti-genocide protests with antisemitism], disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel,” in accordance with popular student government resolutions at the time.

Now is the time for a united, working-class front and mass movement to take up Boston unions’ calls to confront, block and stop all moves by the Trump/Musk administration to further carry out its fascist billionaires’ program of mass deportations and its concomitant attacks on the broad, multinational working class.