Marco Rubio Lied

Let's dissect the Secretary of State's lies about Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk -- and the cost of those lies.

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Late last month, Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was seized from the streets of Medford by non-uniformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, some of whom who covered their faces upon grabbing her. It is reflective of Trump administration efforts to, as ProPublica’s Hannah Allam puts it, erect “a sprawling, opaque apparatus designed to deport the maximum number of people with minimum accountability.”

Here’s the video evidence of Öztürk’s seizure. It’s worth watching with the sound on:

Why was Öztürk arrested? The only possible explanation proffered at the time was that she was a co-author of a Tufts Daily op-ed calling on the president of Tufts to address student concerns about the ongoing war in Gaza. As I wrote at the time, “DHS released a statement claiming that ‘Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas.’ If that op-ed is their sole evidentiary support for such a claim then they’re going to have a hard time proving it — ‘Hamas’ is not mentioned once in the essay.”

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked specifically about Öztürk’s case during a State Department press conference, this is what he said in response:

If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we are not going to give you a visa. 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.

At this point it is worth stipulating two things:

1. Even Rubio acknowledges in those comments that writing an op-ed alone is insufficient grounds for revoking a visa.¹ There have to be actions that cross a line from speech to disorderly or threatening conduct;

2. Rubio implies in his answer that Öztürk is in fact guilty of disruptive conduct;

One would assume that the federal government possessed rock-solid evidence of Öztürk’s misdeeds before detaining her and sending her to an ICE facility in Louisiana despite a U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts telling the federal government not to do that.

As the weeks have passed, however, no evidence has emerged that Öztürk engaged in any threatening or disruptive behavior of any kind. Rather, the opposite has emerged. In early April Tufts University filed a declaration in federal court that made it clear that Rubio’s implicit claims about Öztürk were categorically false:

The University can confirm that Ms. Öztürk is a fifth-year doctoral student in good academic and administrative standing. Her research focuses on how young adults can use social media in positive, prosocial ways and she is described by her faculty as a hard-working student dedicated to her studies and the Tufts community. The University has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention. The University has seen an outpouring of support for Ms. Öztürk over the last week from Tufts students, faculty and staff. These individuals have described Ms. Öztürk as a valued member of the community, dedicated to her academic pursuits and committed to her colleagues.

The University can confirm that Ms. Öztürk was one of several authors of an opinion piece in the student newspaper, The Tufts Daily, published on March 26, 2024, entitled: “Try again, President Kumar: Renewing Calls for Tufts to Adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions.” The University declares that this opinion piece was not in violation of any Tufts policies. Further, no complaints were filed with the University or, to our knowledge, outside of the University about this op-ed. The University maintains that the op-ed was consistent with speech permitted by the Declaration on Freedom of Expression adopted by our trustees on November 7, 2009. For the record, a search of The Tufts Daily will reveal op-eds on multiple sides of the issue with opinions that were shared just as strongly as the op-ed Ms. Öztürk co-authored. The University has no further information suggesting that she has acted in a manner that would constitute a violation of the University's understanding of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

Okay, none of that is good for Rubio’s assertions. The fact that Tufts Democrats, Tufts Republicans, and Tufts Friends of Israel have all penned op-eds protesting Öztürk’s arrest is also noteworthy.

Still, maybe Rubio possesses some stellar intelligence superior to what Tufts administration possesses?

According to the Washington Post’s John Hudson, the answer is “nah”:

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….

After receiving the recommendation from DHS, the State Department found that while Ozturk had protested Tufts’ relationship with Israel, neither DHS nor ICE nor Homeland Security investigations produced any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization, according to U.S. government employees briefed on the State Department’s memo.

The memo also said that a search of U.S. government databases on Ozturk did not produce any terrorism-related information about her….

There are no indications that Ozturk was a leader in last year’s protests at Tufts.

So, based on the State Department memos, Rubio flat-out lied.² The only reason Öztürk was targeted by the federal government was that she exercised her First Amendment rights by co-authoring an op-ed.

The price that everyone but Rubio has paid for his lies is considerable. The damage to U.S. soft power is obvious. The effect on recruiting and retaining international students in the United States could be catastrophic. The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World will address those costs later in the week.

But the most obvious damage done has been to Öztürk, who has been detained for no valid reason whatsoever. According to Tufts Daily’s Samantha Eng, Öztürk has described her detention in harrowing terms to the court:

In a written declaration cited in her council’s motion, Öztürk recounts the sequence of her arrest from personal memory. Öztürk describes how at the time of her arrest, she initially feared for her life, assuming that she was being kidnapped as a result of being doxxed by Canary Mission.

“They were all wearing civilian clothes. I thought this was a strange situation and was sure they were going to kill me,” Öztürk wrote.

Öztürk described concerns for her health, noting that she was not given access to her asthma medication while being transported to Louisiana and that she has suffered four asthma attacks in the Louisiana facility. Öztürk also expressed fear that her medical needs are not being met and that a lack of fresh air has exacerbated her asthma. The living conditions in the facility, Öztürk wrote, are “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane.”

“We are in a cell that has a sign stating capacity for 14 but there are 24 of us in this small space,” Öztürk wrote. “None of us are able to sleep through the night. They come into the cell often and walk around triggering the fluorescent lights. They shout in the cell to wake up those who work in the kitchen around 3:30 am each day.”

Only after Öztürk suffered a second asthma attack was she given medical treatment. The doctors and nurses at the facility’s medical center are “insulting and condescending,” Öztürk wrote.

“Once they finally took me to the medical center, the nurse took my temperature. She said “you need to take that thing off your head” and took off my hejab without asking my permission. I told her you can’t take off my hejab and she said this is for your health. After a few minutes I put my hejab back on. But they did nothing to treat my asthma and gave me a few ibuprofen,” Öztürk wrote.

It is unsurprising that Rubio is reportedly overseeing a nearly 50 percent reduction in the State Department’s budget. After all, if he is eviscerating U.S. credibility and trustworthiness with his lies, why bother with having a State Department at all?

1. Not to mention unconstitutional.

2. This also consistent with oral arguments held on Monday in which the ACLU confirmed that the State Department had provided no further information implicating Öztürk.