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Massachusetts lawmakers detailed the “harrowing” living conditions of detained Tufts and Columbia students after visiting their Louisiana detention center last week. But Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials rebuked their claims as “unequivocally false” in a statement to The Crimson.
Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Representatives Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.) and Jim P. McGovern (D-Mass.) visited Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil to “demand answers, shine a light on this damning violation of their constitutional rights, and call for their immediate release,” Pressley said in a statement.
ICE agents detained Öztürk, a Tufts Ph.D. student and Fulbright scholar, in March after her visa was revoked by the State Department. Khalil, a Columbia student and pro-Palestine activist, was also detained by ICE agents in March.
The lawmakers visited the students in Louisiana to see the “appalling conditions in which the Administration and a private, for-profit prison are keeping detainees.”
“The public has a right to know what is happening at these for-profit detention centers,” the lawmakers wrote in a joint statement. “The Trump administration is using taxpayer money to detain people without charge and fund abuses that DHS’s own inspector general has well documented.”
The facility where Öztürk is detained has previously been accused of being “inhumane” by the American Civil Liberties Union. A 2024 study by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups reported “widespread abuse” in Louisiana’s immigration facilities.
“The findings reveal that immigration detention facilities under the jurisdiction of the New Orleans ICE Field Office (NOLA ICE) routinely fail to comply with ICE’s own minimal standards of care, in addition to violating federal and international human rights law,” the ACLU wrote.
After their visit, lawmakers published an op-ed in The New York Times criticizing the standards of the Öztürk’s detention center.
The lawmakers wrote that Öztürk was “inadequately fed, kept in facilities with extremely cold temperatures and denied personal necessities and religious accommodations.” They also allege a lack of medical care, writing that officers did not provide her with prescribed medication for asthma.
“Despite all this — and despite being far from her loved ones — we were struck by her unwavering spirit,” they wrote.
A federal judge recently ruled the Trump administration must return Öztürk to Vermont, setting a deadline of May 1 for the government to enact the order.
After leaving Louisiana, Representative Pressley discussed her experience at the facility at a press conference in Boston Logan Airport.
“Rümeysa herself shared the story of having to wait three days, despite repeated requests, simply for toilet paper. And you can’t even get an extra blanket at night when you are cold,” she said. “The cruelty is the point.”
“The women that I met are mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, artists, teachers, activists. They are humiliated daily, degraded, and denied the basic necessities of any human being,” Pressley added.
A senior DHS official denied these claims in a statement to The Crimson, saying that Öztürk was put in contact with her lawyer “within hours of her arrival at the facility.”
“Daily inspections are conducted by the facility administrator, and there have been no reports or documented complaints of rodent activity,” the official wrote. “ICE has also provided Ms. Ozturk with prompt medical care and services, and she has not filed any grievances regarding delayed medical care.”
The DHS official then doubled down on the Trump administration’s recent threats to international student visas.
“Being granted a visa to live and study in the United States is a privilege not a right,” the official wrote. “The State Department makes specific determinations about visa revocations when an individual poses a threat to national security.”
The federal government previously revoked the visas of a dozen Harvard students and recent graduates but then reversed course and restored them. Though the State Department restored the Harvard affiliates’ visas, thousands of international students across the nation remain without a visa renewal.
Lawmakers called Öztürk’s visa revocation and subsequent arrest an instance of “democracy being put to the test.”
“This is not immigration enforcement. This is repression. This is authoritarianism,” the lawmakers wrote.
—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.
