The problem with weaponising visas

It was an otherwise ordinary evening in Somerville, Massachusetts—a suburb of Boston. The last week of March had finally begun and the weather was warming up, heralding the arrival of spring. Thirty-year-old Rumeysa Ozturk was going to join some friends for iftar.

- RAFIA ZAKARIA

Ozturk, who has a Master's degree from Columbia University in New York, was a doctoral student at Tufts University. Quiet and soft-spoken, Ozturk, a Turkish national, had a valid student visa and was a Fulbright scholar.

Video footage shows that six men approached Ozturk while she was on her way. All but one were masked. They were not in uniform and Ozturk's terror is palpable in the video. The man whose camera captured the footage asked if this was a kidnapping. The men said they were from the police. In an instant, they had handcuffed Ozturk and spirited her away.

From the looks of it, the arrest seemed very well planned. Her attorney immediately filed a case in a district court in Boston. The judge signed an order asking the authorities not to move Ozturk out of the city, but it appears she has been taken out of Boston.

There is only one reason that can explain why Ozturk—a law-abiding PhD student without any criminal record and with a lawful student visa—was arrested. A year before she was arrested, Ozturk along with some other students had written an op-ed in the student newspaper at Tufts University, criticizing the response of the university administration to resolutions passed by the Tufts Community Union Senate.