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Protesters disrupt Moulton event; congressman compares ICE to Nazis
Demonstrators criticized Rep. Seth Moulton for not doing more to secure the release of Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk.
Protesters interrupted an event featuring Rep. Seth Moulton on Monday, calling on the congressman to do more to help free Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts graduate student detained by ICE last month. During the talk, which was held on the Tufts campus, Moulton expressed outrage at Öztürk’s arrest and compared ICE operations to Hitler’s secret police.
Extinction Rebellion, an “international grassroots movement,” took credit for the disruption. Members of the group have made headlines for chaining themselves to the State House gates, blocking downtown traffic, occupying Gov. Maura Healey’s office, and disrupting operations at Hanscom Field.
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A short video shared with media outlets shows demonstrators taking to the stage with a banner that demanded free speech protections and Öztürk’s release.
“Protesters are being kidnapped off our streets, our government is being pillaged, and all Democrats are doing is releasing statements,” one protester told Moulton. “Why are you here yapping while Trump takes away our rights?”
Öztürk, a Turkish national who was pursuing her PhD at Tufts, was swarmed by masked, plainclothes ICE agents on a Somerville sidewalk two weeks ago. Federal officials revoked her student visa, despite Öztürk not being charged with any crimes.
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The Trump administration has said that Öztürk’s visa was revoked because she voiced support for Hamas. They have provided no evidence for this. Öztürk co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper last year calling for the school to divest from Israel and recognize the alleged war crimes being committed in Gaza by Israeli soldiers. The piece made no mention of the terrorist group.
Öztürk’s lawyers say her detainment violates her constitutional rights and that she was not informed that her visa had been revoked before she was arrested. Outrage spread quickly, prompting thousands to attend an emergency rally the next day. Tufts officials have called for Öztürk’s release.
She was quickly transported to New Hampshire, Vermont, and then to a detention center in Louisiana, where she remains. Her case was moved to Vermont, where a judge must now decide if that court has jurisdiction over her case. Öztürk’s lawyers are hoping this is the case and that she can be released on bail. Federal prosecutors are arguing her case belongs in immigration court in Louisiana.
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The State Department is reportedly using artificial intelligence to identify international students who are linked to free speech expressions that the Trump administration deems are a threat to foreign policy. International students at colleges around the country are seeing their visas unexpectedly revoked, even if they have no links to protest activity the federal government deems objectionable.
Video of Öztürk’s arrest went viral online, fueling the anger of locals and Democrats. Moulton signed onto a letter demanding officials release Öztürk. On social media, he called her arrest “disturbing” and said the Trump administration was acting like “a wannabe dictatorship.”
The protesters were eventually removed by police as they chanted “words don’t stop fascists, get up off your asses.”
Later, Moulton said that this is a “very, very dangerous time in America” and continued to compare the Trump administration to fascist regimes.
“Look at what happened on the streets right outside here,” Moulton told attendees, per The Boston Globe. “It’s like the Gestapo. That’s what the Gestapo was established to do.”
In a press release after their demonstration, Extinction Rebellion said that although Moulton has positioned himself as a critic of Trump, “he has failed to match this criticism with substantive opposition proportional to the severity of the threat.”
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Moulton said that the protesters failed to offer practical solutions, the Globe reported.
“I don’t know what they wanted me to do. To go down and try to bust into this prison in Louisiana?” he said.
A spokesperson for Moulton did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.
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