No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found.

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An internal memo, prepared days before Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE agents, raises doubts about the Trump administration’s claims that she supports Hamas.

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Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.

The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States.

The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities “in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.

The revocation of Ozturk’s visa is part of an expanding crackdown on international students and scholars by the Trump administration including hundreds of visa revocation cases. She was taken into custody March 25.

Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student from Turkey, was targeted by the government for co-writing an op-ed last year in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to the Israel-Gaza war. A hearing in Ozturk’s case is scheduled for Monday in federal court in Vermont. Her lawyers say her possible deportation would violate the United States’ founding principles of freedom of speech.

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In a hearing Monday, District of Vermont Judge William K. Sessions III said he’d take the federal government’s and Öztürk’s attorneys’ arguments under advisement. He could take the case under his jurisdiction and schedule a habeas hearing to consider her petition for release in May.

The legal challenge over Öztürk’s detention is separate from the immigration proceedings underway, in which an immigration judge will decide whether or not to deport her. A district court could decide if her detention and circumstances of her arrest are unconstitutional. Öztürk is scheduled to have her first immigration court hearing in Louisiana on Wednesday, although is it only a preliminary hearing to set deadlines. Her attorneys this morning also asked an immigration court separately to consider bond.

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