ICE giving governor cold shoulder over Tufts student arrest, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey says
Published in News & Features
BOSTON — Even as President Donald Trump attacks the judiciary for standing in the way of implementing his oft-promised mass deportations, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey says that the administration has not been forthcoming with details or the legal reasoning behind recent high profile arrests in her state.
According to Healey, ICE has not answered questions regarding the broad-daylight arrest of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University Ph.D. student from NATO-ally Turkey studying in the U.S. under the federally-overseen Fulbright Program. Healey said she’s heard “really nothing” from federal government to explain why Ozturk was taken off the streets of Somerville by half-a-dozen masked plain-clothed immigration authorities.
“Obviously the video is disturbing and you know there are questions about this — real questions about this. We don’t know the circumstances under which this woman was taken. We haven’t had any information provided to us by the Department of Homeland Security,” Healey told WCVB’s On the Record during an interview aired Sunday.
No charges were filed against Ozturk and the only reason given for her arrest and retraction of her student visa, was an initial claim by Homeland Security that she supports the terrorist group Hamas. Ozturk is currently housed in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana. She was moved there by federal authorities after a hearing in Boston. The judge in that hearing issued an court order to keep her in Massachusetts following her arrest, but she was already moved out of the state.
President Trump, Healey said, had promised during his campaign to go after criminal aliens, and as a former Attorney General she said she supports and has participated the effort get drug and human traffickers off the streets. The arrest of Ozturk, the governor said, seems to run counter to the president’s promise.
“I’m not sure what is going on here, to be honest,” Healey said.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys.
“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” the judge wrote.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said he has the authority to unilaterally suspend Ozturk’s and other students’ rights to be in the country over their participating in protests and “creating a ruckus” on campus in response to Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. But in his remarks last week he offered no proof of illegal activity committed by Ozturk. Tufts University has said she remains in good standing.
In a past op-ed Ozturk criticized the university’s administration after the Tufts Senate passed resolutions about the “Palestinian genocide” and divesting from companies with ties to Israel.
Rubio says she wasn’t granted a visa to write opinion pieces or join protests.
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that we’re going to take it away,” Rubio said.
State Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said via social media that ICE and DHS investigations “found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans,” but didn’t point to any charging documents or court activity resulting from said investigation.
Healey said she also hasn’t heard a response from the federal government regarding their widely publicized apparent arrest of 370 people during a series of statewide sweeps conducted earlier this month. Not only did trump’s border czar Tom Homan fail to meet her and discuss his plans for a largescale law enforcement operation in her state, his agency hasn’t provided her administration with any real information about who they took, Healey said.
ICE has not provided the names of those arrested, their ages, or where they were residing when apprehended. Their release did include a short list of crimes which 14 of the 370 people arrested allegedly committed or were charged with, but ICE did not provide charging documents or point to any prior criminal cases or proceedings for any of the accused.
It’s a disturbing situation, according to Healey, especially considering some of those arrested apparently committed no crimes at all.
“I think what’s concerning, first of all, is we don’t know anything about who they actually took. There are numbers offered but we’ve seen no substantiation. What is also true, is they admit they took a number of people as ‘collateral damage,’ and these are people who are working here, paying taxes here, living here, raising kids here, who had no crimes,” Healey said.
President Trump on Sunday railed against federal judges standing in the way of his efforts to clamp down on illegal immigration.
The President’s latest remarks come as the situation plays out in Massachusetts and , US District Judge James Boasberg, of the DC district, has ordered the administration not to deport anyone under the Enemy Aliens Act of 1798. Trump on Friday filed an emergency appeal of Boasberg’s order to the Supreme Court.
On Sunday, Trump blasted Boasberg and other “Radical Left Judges” judges he said were unlawfully standing in the way while he’s trying to do his job.
“People are shocked by what is going on with the Court System. I was elected for many reasons, but a principal one was LAW AND ORDER, a big part of which is QUICKLY removing a vast Criminal Network of individuals, who came into our Country through the Crooked Joe Biden Open Borders Policy! These are dangerous and violent people, who kill, maim and, in many other ways, harm the people of our Country. The Voters want them OUT, and said so in Record Numbers,” he wrote, capitalization his.
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