Internal Memo on Abducted Tufts Student Exposes Marco Rubio as 'Stone-Cold Liar'

An internal U.S. State Department memo written days before plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents abducted Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk last month found that the Trump administration did not produce any evidence demonstrating that the doctoral student took part in antisemitic activity or showed support for a terrorist group.

That finding, revealed in Sunday reporting by The Washington Post, undercuts Secretary of State Marco Rubio's repeated insistence that Ozturk and other students who have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration have engaged in "impermissible actions taken to support designated foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis."

"The key takeaway from this story is that Marco Rubio is a stone-cold liar," wrote political scientist Daniel Drezner.

The State Department memo, according to the Post, determined that 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." Rubio ultimately revoked Ozturk's visa using a different authority that "allows for the revocation of a visa at the secretary of state's discretion."

Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national, is currently being detained in an ICE facility in Louisiana amid an ongoing legal fight over the Trump administration's attempt to remove her from the U.S. She has decried the conditions inside the detention facility and said she received limited medical care after suffering several asthma attacks.

Ozturk appears to have been targeted by the Trump administration over an op-ed in which she and her co-authors criticized Tufts' response to student-led calls to "end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination—a right that is guaranteed by international law."

ProPublica noted Sunday that "Ozturk's attorneys, who are scheduled to appear Monday before a federal judge in Vermont, say the sole basis for revoking her visa appears to be the op-ed."

In a recent court filing, Ozturk's attorneys argued it is "plain" that she is "being retaliated against as part of the government's policy to arrest and detain noncitizens based on First Amendment protected speech advocating for Palestinian rights."

"Each day Ms. Öztürk remains confined further effectuates the government's unjustified retaliation against her and reinforces the broad chill already cast on other students and scholars who fear they could be next," the filing continued. "The longer the government keeps Ms. Öztürk detained, the less likely it is that any other similarly situated student or scholar will feel free to risk speaking."