Rumeysa Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar currently detained at a facility in Louisiana, recounts her experience following her arrest by ICE agents on March 25, in a sworn declaration obtained by TRT World. The document, exclusively available to TRT World, was filed in federal court by her lawyers on April 10.

Ozturk, 30, was detained shortly after her name and photo appeared on Canary Mission, an anonymously run blacklist site that claims to document individuals who “promote hatred of the USA, Israel, and Jews” on college campuses and beyond.

“Since appearing on the Canary Mission website in February, I began fearing that I could be targeted for violence,” Ozturk said in the statement.

The site accused her of supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, engaging in “anti-Israel activism,” and co-authoring an op-ed urging Tufts University to recognise what she described as “the Palestinian genocide.”

A Turkish citizen, Ozturk is among hundreds of students and professors profiled by Canary Mission since 2015 for expressing views the site deems anti-Israel or antisemitic. Other individuals recently spotlighted include Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil on March 8 and Mohsen Mahdawi in the latest, on April 14.

Canary Mission is one of numerous doxing platforms that have boasted playing a role in the arrests of students and academics since Trump’s executive order targeting pro-Palestine activism took effect. 

The executive order enabled masked ICE agents to detain individuals without warrants—acts widely condemned as political “abductions” and blatant violations of due process.

“When the men approached me, my first thought was that they were not government officials, but private individuals who wanted to harm me,” Ozturk wrote, describing the initial moments captured on surveillance footage, which cuts off as she is dragged away.

Though the men identified themselves as police, the abrupt nature of the encounter led her to doubt their claims. One briefly flashed a gold badge, but she couldn’t read it.

“I didn’t think they were police. I had never seen police operate this way,” she wrote, fearing they were vigilantes linked to her online doxxing.

Amid the chaos that saw her forced into a vehicle, her repeated questions—why she was being detained, whether she was under arrest—were met with silence.

‘I was sure they were going to kill me’ 

While being transported, Ozturk experienced repeated asthma attacks. At a stop in a parking lot, officers shackled her feet and midsection before placing her back in the car.

“I wanted to ask what was happening, but they were scary and harsh,” she said.

Ozturk had previously contacted a lawyer out of fear after being doxxed and carried the number with her, but her repeated requests to speak to counsel were deferred. 

At one point, the agents had transferred her to a different vehicle. That’s when Ozturk said she became convinced they “intended to kill” her. 

When Ozturk again asked about her safety, one officer briefly showed a badge she couldn’t read and warned that anything she said could be used against her.

“He seemed to feel guilty and said ‘we are not monsters’, ‘we do what the government tells us,’” Ozturk recalled.

‘Are you a member of a terrorist organisation?’

When the car arrived at what appeared to be a police station in Lebanon, New Hampshire, that was the first time Ozturk believed she was in the custody of US law enforcement rather than vigilantes linked to her online doxxing. 

After using the bathroom, she was taken to Vermont, she was held overnight in a bare cell which had only a hard bench and a toilet.

“I was not able to sleep. The toilet was in the same space with basically no barrier and there was no soap. There were no other detainees there, as far as I could tell.”

Her requests to speak to a lawyer kept getting denied, although “they said I could take some phone numbers from my phone to call from my next location,” Ozturk said.

“Once I did that, they had access to my phone. I have private photos of me without hejab and my loved ones on there of me and am very concerned about them having access to these,” she wrote in her declaration.

That night, agents returned to her cell several times, waking her to ask whether she wanted to apply for asylum and whether she was affiliated with any terrorist organization. 

Exhausted and disoriented, Ozturk tried her best to respond, despite barely understanding what was happening to her. At one point, she asked where they were taking her next. “Louisiana,” one of them replied.  

“I hope we treated you with respect,” another added.

‘I couldn’t breathe’

Around 4 am, they came for her again. She was handcuffed and flown to Atlanta. By then, she had stopped requesting a lawyer—it was clear those requests wouldn’t be honoured.

While waiting at the airport, Ozturk suffered her first severe asthma attack under detention. “I felt like I could not breathe,” she later wrote. 

She was allowed to go to the restroom and used her emergency inhaler, but the attack didn’t subside. 

She pleaded for her prescribed medication, but officers told her there was “no place to buy it” and that she would receive it only at her final destination.

‘It’s all in your mind’

Upon arrival at the Louisiana detention facility, Ozturk experienced more asthma attacks.

“I asked them to let me outside to get some fresh air. They said no but let me wait outside of the room in the hallway. While waiting, I still couldn't breathe well and was crying.”

When she was finally taken to the medical centre, a nurse took her temperature and then, without asking, removed her hijab.

“She said ‘you need to take that thing off your head’ and took off my hijab without asking my permission. I told her you can’t take off my hijab and she said this is for your health.”

No asthma treatment followed.

In another incident, a nurse dismissed her symptoms as “all in [her] mind.”

It wasn’t until late on March 26, 2025, more than 24 hours after her detention and after experiencing multiple asthma attacks that Ozturk was allowed to finally contact a lawyer in Louisiana. 

Detention conditions

By April 10—when her declaration was submitted—Ozturk had suffered at least four asthma attacks in custody, worsened by conditions she had previously said would put her health at risk.

She said she is among 24 detainees housed in a cell designed for 14.

“When they do the inmate count, we are threatened to not leave our beds or we will lose privileges, which means that we are often stuck waiting in our beds for hours,” she said.

“At mealtimes, there is so much anxiety because there is no schedule when it comes. ... They threaten to close the door if we don’t leave the room in time, meaning we won’t get a meal.”

In her declaration, Ozturk said she wants to return to Tufts University to finish her degree, which she’s worked toward for five years.

Her detention has disrupted her PhD program—she was just months from completion.

Why is Ozturk being deported?

Unlike Columbia student leader Mahmoud Khalil, Ozturk wasn’t widely known as a campus activist, prompting questions about the motivations behind her arrest.

Without offering evidence, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said she was detained for engaging in “activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organisation that relishes the killing of Americans.”

Her visa, along with more than 300 others including Khalil’s, was revoked under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that any immigrant may be deported if the Secretary of State determines that their activities or presence in the US could pose “adverse foreign policy consequences.”

A coalition of 27 Jewish organizations from across the United States is currently objecting to Ozturk’s arrest and detention which they assert “violate the most basic constitutional rights,” such as freedom of expression.