Rümeysa Özturk is on her way to dinner with friends when she is surrounded by plainclothes police officers. The incident is caught on surveillance cameras: A black-clad man grabs her hands, another takes her phone. Özturk looks frightened at first, then angry. She is handcuffed and taken away from the scene.
On Wednesday, the day after the arrest, a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security claimed that Özturk "had engaged in activities supporting Hamas" and that her visa had therefore been revoked. She has not been charged with any crime.
The 30-year-old from Turkey, who has a research position at Tufts University in Massachusetts, is one of a growing number of students in the US who have been arrested for alleged support for Hamas following a wave of pro-Palestinian university protests.
Project Esther
According to American media, Özturk does not appear to have participated in any protests. Instead, she was a co-author of an op-ed in Tufts' school newspaper last March, in which the university's response to the protests was criticized.
Özturk is now being held in federal custody in Louisiana, just like Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested earlier in March after participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He risks deportation, as do several other foreign-born students in the US.
Donald Trump's administration appears to be following a controversial plan that was quietly presented just before the election last year, according to Axios. The manifesto, called Project Esther, was designed by the Heritage Foundation, which is also behind Project 2025 – an ultra-conservative plan developed before the election to fundamentally change the US government.
Unconstitutional
Project Esther targets the pro-Palestinian movement in the US, which is accused of Hamas sympathies, anti-Semitism, and hatred of Israel. The goal is, among other things, to stop demonstrations and label pro-Palestinians as Hamas supporters and deport them – regardless of whether they have student visas or permanent residence permits.
Several associations of professors and academics are now suing the Trump administration, according to NBC News. Arresting people for participating in protests violates the Constitution, they argue.
The White House is incorrectly labeling all critics of Israel's war efforts in Gaza as "Hamas supporters" and deporting students on ideological grounds, according to the lawsuit.
The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation and conservative allies have been working on action plans with "wish lists" of what they want to see from Republican governments since the early 1980s.
These action plans usually have a significant impact on politics.
The action plan before last year's election was called Project 2025 and was unusually comprehensive, over 900 pages long. It described a lawless and chaotic US "poisoned by 'wokeness'" – where conservatives need to take power immediately to save a sinking ship.
Among the wishes are to strengthen presidential power and change the state apparatus, abolish the education department and several other authorities, make abortions no longer part of healthcare, dismantle climate policy, abolish equality and diversity initiatives, deport undocumented migrants, and lower taxes.
Many of the proposals have been implemented since Donald Trump took office in January, despite the president formally distancing himself from Project 2025.
Just before the election in November 2024, the Heritage Foundation presented another plan: Project Esther. It aims to combat what is seen as anti-Semitism in the pro-Palestinian movement in the US, among other things by labeling students as Hamas supporters and then deporting them.
Source: Forbes, The New York Times, Axios, Heritage Foundation
