Warren calls on State Department to release memo on Rümeysa Özturk’s detention (2025)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on federal officials to release any documentation supporting the basis for the ongoing detention of Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Özturk, who was arrested in Somerville last month.

Özturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national, was detained while walking to an Iftar, the evening meal to break a Ramadan fast, on March 25. She has never been charged with a crime, but federal officials have accused her of supporting Hamas, a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization.

The only basis for the accusation appears to be an op-ed Özturk co-authored in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the university for its response to a series of resolutions passed by the student senate condemning the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

• Read more: Rümeysa Özturk describes harrowing Louisiana confinement in new court filing

Citing a report in the Washington Post, Warren noted that a State Department memo found no evidence showing Özturk “engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization.”

That memo has not been publicly released.

“The memorandum thus appears to contradict the federal government’s publicly stated rationale for revoking Ms. Öztürk’s visa,” Warren wrote in the letter, cosigned by U.S. Sen Ed Markey, D-Mass., and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-7th District for Massachusetts. “Ms. Öztürk’s case demands transparency. The circumstances of her arrest and detention raise serious concerns about civil liberties, academic freedom, and free speech, as well as the Trump administration’s truthfulness.”

The letter calls on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to provide Warren, Markey and Pressley with a copy of the memorandum referenced in the Washington Post report by April 30.

The lawmakers also asked Rubio to provide any other documents in the department’s possession regarding the “basis for Ms. Öztürk’s visa revocation and how she was identified for this action.”

It’s the second time Warren and other Democratic lawmakers have publicly pressured officials for more information on Özturk’s case.

In a March 28 letter signed by more than two dozen senators and members of the U.S. House, Warren wrote, “the rationale for this arrest appears to be this student’s expression of her political views.”

Öztürk has been detained in Louisiana for nearly a month since her arrest, as she fights her detention in federal court. A judge in Vermont is considering whether he has the authority to take up her case.

Meanwhile, an Immigration Court judge in Louisiana denied her request for bond, keeping her in detention.