Rumeysa Ozturk, who was detained for weeks by the Trump administration after co-writing a pro-Palestinian opinion essay, has graduated and returned home.
Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University graduate student who was arrested during the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus speech, has returned to Turkey after completing her studies, the group representing her said Friday.
Her arrest, in March 2025, was an early battle in the Trump administration’s targeting of university campuses. Armed and masked immigration agents surrounded her and whisked her into a van. She spent six weeks in federal custody. First, she was driven from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, then Vermont and then flown to a detention facility in Louisiana.
In a statement posted by the American Civil Liberties Union, Ozturk, who completed her doctorate in child study and human development, said she was proud to return home on her own timeline…
