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New York Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Under Trump, a Mainstay for Small Businesses Clamps Down
For entrepreneurs who want a loan, a government contract or just some advice, the Small Business Administration is generally a first stop. But over the past few months, getting the agency's help has become more difficult. Under its administrator, Kelly Loeffler, a corporate executive turned senator from Georgia and vocal supporter of President Trump, the agency has aggressively cut staff. It is rolling back changes made during the Biden administration aimed at easing access to credit for the smallest enterprises, and has lowered targets for how much the federal government should buy from them. The changes are especially problematic for Black, Hispanic and immigrant entrepreneurs. In the name of eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion practices, the Small Business Administration is shedding programs aimed at helping disadvantaged businesses, including those run by women. While banks that administer the S.B.A.'s major loan programs have welcomed some of the changes, Democrats and small-business advocates have decried them — especially as the agency is also supposed to inherit a $1.66 trillion student loan portfolio from the largely dismantled Education Department. 'It's unconscionable that the Trump administration would treat such a vital agency so callously,' said Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He noted that Ms. Loeffler had ignored his requests for information about the changes. 'They're destroying the areas where they do have expertise and it's vital to invest, and then moving over areas where the agency is going to wind up overwhelmed,' Mr. Markey said. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, the committee's Republican chair, did not respond to requests for comment. But she has cheered the new policies in letters and hearings, saying that the agency's staff was bloated and that its underwriting standards were too lax. The Small Business Administration, established in 1953, has long been supported by both parties. Its lending arm dispensed $56 billion in 2024, and its flagship loan program is generally supposed to operate without a government subsidy. The last few years have been chaotic for the agency. Its responsibilities expanded drastically during the pandemic, when it received more than $1 trillion to distribute through emergency relief programs. Staffing temporarily doubled to nearly 10,000 employees in order to administer them. The number of workers fell to about 6,000 by the time President Joseph R. Biden Jr. left office, and was slated to gradually contract a bit more as the pandemic loan portfolio shrank. The Trump administration decided to fast-forward that culling. In March, it announced a 43 percent staffing reduction, amounting to 2,700 employees. Current and former employees say the cuts have not been carried out in an organized way. Probationary members of the staff were the first to be let go, followed by those who took advantage of the Department of Government Efficiency's deferred resignation program. After that, workers were fired. As a result, many district offices have been hollowed out, slowing response times. An agency spokeswoman, Caitlin O'Dea, did not elaborate on the distribution of the cuts, but wrote in a response to questions that the reorganization would 'redirect all resources to support the core mission of empowering small businesses and driving economic growth, instead of supporting the partisan programs that took root under the Biden administration.' During a Senate hearing on Wednesday with Ms. Loeffler, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said her state's district office had been cut to three employees from seven, and she asked whether the positions would be restored. Ms. Loeffler replied that she would rehire some of those workers who had retired, but did not provide a timeline. One corner of the agency that has been hobbled is the servicing of Covid-era disaster loans. The agency kept the loan operation in-house when it began in 2020, requiring hundreds of agents to handle payments and other issues. As those employees started being pushed out or leaving of their own accord, live assistance on the program's phone line was shut down. According to Ms. O'Dea, this was a four-day outage while call center infrastructure was upgraded, yet reports of unanswered calls predate that period. Shelly Haywood took out a disaster loan to keep her vintage furniture store in Orange County, Calif., afloat during the pandemic. Business never quite recovered, and in March she decided to shutter her company. To do that, she needed to talk to the S.B.A. to figure out what to do with her loan, which still carried a balance of $57,000. 'I'm calling and calling, but the phone number no longer gave you an option to talk to someone,' Ms. Haywood said. With nobody available to provide guidance, she is forced to consider closing her business while the agency still has a lien on her remaining inventory. The loan may then be referred to the Treasury Department's collections office, which could garnish her Social Security payments or tax refunds. 'Every company has to cut. I'm OK with all of that,' Ms. Haywood said. 'But if you're going to do cuts, don't just leave everybody hanging.' Staff cuts may also affect the agency's ability to police fraud in the disaster loan program, which has been plagued with abuse. In March, Ms. Loeffler fired the agency's chief risk officer and his 11-person team, saying the function would be 'elevated' under the chief financial officer. As the agency loses workers, it's also tightening requirements for those disaster loans, which were underwritten with little proof that the business would be able to repay. Previously, borrowers had been able to get a series of hardship accommodations that enabled them to make only minimum interest payments. That allowance was terminated in March. Jason Milleisen, a consultant who advises S.B.A. borrowers on how to navigate loan settlements, said many of his clients were now more likely to just default. 'So many people call me, they want to pay, they don't want to walk away, but the S.B.A. gives them no choice,' Mr. Milleisen said. 'People are in an impossible position here, which is why there's so much discussion around bankruptcy.' Ms. Loeffler, while working to expand lending for manufacturers, is returning to stricter standards for the agency's flagship program for loans of up to $5 million, known as 7(a). The Biden administration loosened credit requirements, granted lending licenses to more types of companies beyond traditional banks and waived fees in order to ease access to credit. As a result, the number of smaller loans to firms owned by women and people of color rose significantly. Ms. Loeffler reversed course in April, saying the new rules had caused an increase in defaults, dragging the program into a deficit. Katie Frost, who ran those programs for the Biden administration until January, argued that rising interest rates, not weaker underwriting standards, had driven higher defaults. (An independent analysis by Lumos Data found that both factors were at play.) 'I think it's just going to tighten up the ability of small businesses to get credit,' Ms. Frost said. 'The vast majority of borrowers are in fact able to make these loan payments. The whole point of the program is to encourage lenders to accept a little more risk than they would conventionally.' Lenders' views on the reversal vary, but larger banks tended to favor going back to the earlier rules. 'I think in the end it's going to be better,' said Tonya Mazurek, who runs S.B.A. lending in Colorado for Midwest Regional Bank. About loans, she added, 'The ones that are harder that aren't going through probably shouldn't have.' While those changes affect all borrowers, many of Ms. Loeffler's efforts are aimed at specific groups like immigrants. In March, she announced that the agency was relocating six district offices in 'sanctuary cities,' which are jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration officials. New York City was one of them. Marlene Cintron, who oversaw the New York region for the S.B.A. during the Biden administration, said her New York City operation — which facilitated a billion dollars in loans annually — had lost half its staff. The downtown Manhattan office is set to be consolidated into one on Long Island, she said. 'Small-business owners in New York City are expected to take the Long Island Rail Road or drive or take buses to Long Island in order to be serviced,' Ms. Cintron said. 'That is a major adverse impact.' Ms. O'Dea said that none of the six offices had yet closed and that their replacements had not been announced, but that they would be in 'safer and more accessible communities that comply with federal immigration law.' The agency also announced that all borrowers must now provide proof of their citizenship status. For some programs, 100 percent of the company must be owned by citizens or legal permanent residents. As a result, anyone who has an investor without a Social Security number does not qualify. That change has upended an S.B.A. loan for Haley Pavone, who founded and runs a footwear company called Pashion. She spent years preparing her business to qualify for a 7(a) loan, which carries a significantly lower interest rate than many private options. She was close to signing final documents for a $5 million loan when the agency announced an immediate change to its citizenship requirements. Ms. Pavone scrambled to ask her investors for personal information, including Social Security cards and driver's licenses. She soon learned that less than 2 percent of Pashion's equity was owned by Mexican nationals. The loan fell through, and she has been forced to pivot while facing new tariffs on her products, which are imported from China. 'I'm hoping we can find a capital partner, but frankly my level of optimism given the general level of chaos in the space right now is not high,' said Ms. Pavone, who was born and raised in California. 'It doesn't make any sense.' Ms. Loeffler has also focused on erasing programs that devote special attention to women or people of color, pursuant to a presidential executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion. For example, the Biden administration had started an initiative in California called the Inclusivity Project, teaming up with Wells Fargo to educate and mentor Black-owned businesses. Jay King, the chief executive of the California Black Chamber of Commerce, said the program was helping his members — and other businesses of all races — become good candidates for loans. A couple of months ago, the local Small Business Development Center told him that the Inclusivity Project was shutting down. Mr. King was disappointed, but not surprised. 'Donald Trump is trying to say, 'We're trying to make everybody equal — everybody's the same,'' Mr. King said. 'But we're not. It's never been equal.' The anti-D.E.I. drive also appears likely to claim the agency's approximately 150 women's business centers, which were established by statute in 1988 and offer one-on-one counseling to female entrepreneurs. The White House's proposed budget, which calls for reducing the S.B.A.'s annual funding by a third, would eliminate those centers, along with some 28 offices devoted to serving veterans. The women's business centers operate on budgets of $150,000 a year each, and are usually housed within nonprofits. Funding installments have already been coming late, and some center directors have been told that they should expect to receive no more checks after the fiscal year ends this October. Asked why the centers are being eliminated, Ms. O'Dea said that the agency was 'evaluating the performance and efficacy of each of its taxpayer-subsidized resource partners to ensure they are delivering measurable results for small business owners and taxpayers,' but that it 'fully supports the White House's budget.' While the Small Business Administration is withdrawing loans and grants, it's also easing up on efforts to channel federal procurement toward small businesses, especially those in historically disadvantaged categories. The Biden administration had raised the share of federal spending to those businesses to 15 percent. That goal was supported by offices across agencies devoted to purchasing from small enterprises. Mr. Trump lowered it back down to the statutory floor of 5 percent, and many of those offices have been cut back. At the same time, the number of small-business contracts being terminated has skyrocketed, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Aditi Dussault developed the agency's equity plan, where she served as associate administrator of the Office of Entrepreneurial Development in the Biden administration. She said abandoning higher contracting goals and pulling back technical assistance for those who needed it most was already deterring small enterprises from going after federal business. 'You have all these different supports for small businesses to guide them along the pathway to economic opportunity,' Ms. Dussault said. 'And we are seeing that be eliminated before our very eyes.'
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Phone workers worried about lead on old lines wonder: Who will answer their call?
SPRINGFIELD — Inspectors with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found lead after swiping the hands of telephone line workers in Springfield. They performed the tests after workers rinsed off but before they headed home to their families at the end of the workday. There's also lead — a metal to which there is no safe exposure level for children — in air sampled from under a maintenance hole at Central and Cedar streets in January. Federal officials told the workers and their union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2324, in a letter that the air concentration of lead in the maintenance hole was high enough to warrant taking corrective action. But the outcome of investigations into lead once used to coat old telephone lines in the region — as well as a formal report on sediment scooped from the bottom of that maintenance hole — are uncertain because President Donald Trump-ordered staff cuts have paralyzed the agencies sent here to help just five months ago. Those federal employees — summoned to Springfield through the efforts of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2324 and U.S. Sen. Edward Markey — also scooped sediment from a maintenance hole in the busy Six Corners neighborhood. That sediment tested 'magnitudes' higher than the air testing, said John Rowley Sr., business manager of IBEW Local 2324, citing an informal conversation with a federal employee. But a formal report on the sediment sampled from the maintenance hole — a document that can help Rowley protect the health of 230 unionized telephone workers across Western Massachusetts as well as thousands of retirees — has not yet been released by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which faced deep staffing cuts due to the Trump administration's attempts to draw down the federal workforce. Based in Cincinnati, NIOSH investigates hazards in the workplace. For instance, it has maintained a firefigher cancer registry and conducted research into indoor air quality. 'I don't care who you voted for. Or what kind of reset you thought the country needed,' Rowley said as he showed the Republican the site where the samples were taken just up the block from a Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start daycare. 'But there are people cheering for something that is to their own detriment.' Last week, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that 70 NIOSH workers at two offices, one in West Virginia and the other in Pittsburgh, have been spared layoffs. These workers deal mostly with mine safety and respirator testing. This week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators that staffers will be reinstated in Cincinnati as well. That's the office that was handling the lead. 'The work in NIOSH will not be interrupted‚" Kennedy said, according to wire service reports. 'We understand it's critically important function, and I did not want to see it end.' Senators — both Republicans and Democrats — criticized the cutbacks. And on Friday, after weeks of emails from The Republican, Health and Human services spokesperson Brittney Manchester said she was able to confirm that the Health Hazard Evaluations final report, which includes results of sediment samples in Springfield, will be completed soon and provided to company, union, and employee representatives, OSHA, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. 'I don't know until I see it,' Rowley said. But he's already been warned by researchers at NIOSH that the people who performed the tests and completed the report are due to leave federal service. That means he doesn't know if the report will be altered by others. And if he wants to follow up and press the issue, who does he call? Telephone companies used lead to shield copper wires inside telephone cables from electromagnetic interference up until plastics came in in the 1960s. Members of the IBEW Local here in Western Massachusetts have tested with high levels of lead in their blood, he said. Workers report headaches — a classic symptom — getting so bad they had to go home for the day. Contamination on hands, boots and clothing gets carried home to young children who are particularly susceptible to lead impacts. Lead, according to the EPA, leads to behavior and learning problems, lower IQ and hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems and anemia in children. It causes miscarriages if pregnant women are exposed. And for adults lead exposure can bring on increased blood pressure and incidence of hypertension, decreased kidney function and reproductive problems in both men and women. Rowley was told to contact staffers at HHS who handle requests for information made under the Freedom of Information Act, staffers at parent organization the federal Department of Health and Human Services. One day after getting that instruction, Rowley said he was informed that the FOIA staff had been laid off in a cutback ordered by the Elon Musk run Department of Government Efficiency. The situation angered Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a pediatrician who worked at NIOSH and now serves as director of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good at Boston College. Unlike Kennedy, Landrigan said NIOSH's work has already been interrupted. 'What has happened at NIOSH within the past month or so, the new administration has fired 90% of the workers,' Landrigan said in a phone interview. 'They have basically eviscerated the agency.' The answers The Republican recieved after repeated emails referred questions to other agences. One Centers for Disease Control spokesperson replied that OSHA has not performed site work in Springfield despite the agency's presence. 'I suspect everything is coming to a halt,' said Jack Caravanos, a professor emeritus of public health at New York University who was among the first to study lead contamination from old utility wires. Landrigan said the loss of research into occupational safety and health is a danger to the public. 'It's a small, highly efficient agency that punches way above its weight,' Landrigan said of NIOSH. Former colleagues at NIOSH had told him that most of the work has stopped. 'It probably means there is no one at the other end of the phone to give these workers their results,' he said. The U.S. Department of Labor, which includes OSHA, also faces cutbacks to its regulatory staff. But some action is going on. OSHA staff supervised the collection of more air samples from under Springfield maintenance holes earlier this month in response to complaints from anonymous workers, Rowley said. The EPA referred calls from The Republican to OSHA this week. But Washington-based spokespeople for the departments of Health and Human Services and of Labor didn't respond. Boston-based regional spokespeople for those agencies are apparently no longer on the job, with emails bouncing back. Thehe lead is still there, however, as more than 50 miles sit beneath the streets of Springfield alone, Rowley said. In July 2023, The Wall Street Journal, following up on a California lawsuit involving lead cables submerged under Lake Tahoe — reported the threat. Markey, a Democrat sitting on the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, took up the issue and called for phone companies to step up testing and worker protections. In February 2024, Markey visited Chicopee and watched with Landrigan and Rowley as Caravanos used a handheld X-ray to detect lead in soils in residential neighborhoods. 'President Trump has gutted the agency in charge of researching, testing, and monitoring worker safety,' Markey said in a written response to questions. 'His despicable actions will endanger countless workers, from coal miners suffering black lung to firefighters at high risk of cancer. Last year, I brought workplace safety experts and impacted workers together in Springfield to spotlight the danger of lead in telecommunications cables.' Markey said the work is now 'hamstrung.' In Massachusetts, enforcement of lead laws is handled at the state level. The Department of Labor Standards investigates violations related to lead abatement. The Department of Public Health's childhood lead poisoning prevention program addresses cases of lead exposure in children. While visiting Chicopee in 2024 with Markey, Caravanos said results showed that lead had fallen from old overhead lines into the dooryard of homes on Montcalm Street. And the same thing is still happening not only in the Pioneer Valley but across the country, Rowley said. Friction and disturbances — possibly from people working with tools — turns the lead into dust. It falls to the ground from overhead wires. It's not water soluble, but it can get washed like sand as the water moves. Workers often pump out the pits when they need to go down to work in them. 'Here, in the city, that goes into the storm drains,' Rowley said. 'In one of the towns it might go into someone's yard where their well is.' Verizon, one of several corporate heirs to the old Bell system telephone monopoly and the one doing business here, didn't respond to questions from The Republican over the past few weeks. But in the past it's taken issue with the Wall Street Journal reporting and called for more research. Verizon wrote a New York congressman in 2023 saying 'soil lead levels near Verizon's cable there are similar to lead levels in the surrounding area (i.e., background levels) and do not pose a public health risk to your constituents.' Verizon stockholders will have a chance to weigh in at the annual stockholder vote May 22. The Association of BellTel Retirees Inc., owner of 214 shares of Verizon's common stock, is asking stockholders to force Verizon management to do a comprehensive independent study and release the results by December of this year. This sort of shareholder activism has been used before. Groups of nuns bedeviled Springfield's Smith & Wesson into assessing its role in gun violence. Verizon's management replied that it studied the issue back in 2023 and is working with the EPA and others. But the retirees are having none of it. 'As of November 2024, Verizon has provided no further details. In our view, the issue is too important to slip from public view. Lead remediation efforts in other industries have dragged on for years, and we believe that Verizon should be ahead of the curve,' they wrote in support of their proposal in a document provided to shareholders and posed online by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Whatever happens won't be cheap. The retirees say a 2023 analysis by New Street Research estimated that remediation could cost $10 billion $26 billion across the nation. Rowley said Verizon has workers use respirators in the maintenance holes now. But as Rowley and Landrigan point out, contaminated dust gets on hands and clothes, contaminated mud gets on shoes. And workers go home to families with young children. Children are unusually susceptible. 'Whoever is down there. They are all subject to this,' Landrigan said. 'This place is going to come alive': Pride stores founder unveils Hope Center for the Arts Springfield collects $41M of $47M school funding threatened by Trump 50 years after arriving in Enfield, Lego's future clicks together elsewhere Read the original article on MassLive.
Globe and Mail
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Turkish Tufts University student back in Boston after release from Louisiana detention center
A Tufts University student from Turkey returned to Boston on Saturday, one day after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention centre where she was held for over six weeks. Upon arrival at Logan Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a 'very difficult' period. 'In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,' she said. 'But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.' A federal judge ordered Ozturk's release Friday pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university's response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Ozturk said she will continue her case in the courts, adding, 'I have faith in the American system of justice.' She was joined by her lawyers and two of Massachusetts' Democratic members of Congress, Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley. 'Today is a tremendous day as we welcome you back, Rumeysa,' Markey said. 'You have made millions and millions of people across our country so proud of the way you have fought.' Appearing by video for her bail hearing the previous day, Ozturk, 30, detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate focusing on children and social media. U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Vermont ruled that she was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. She was not a danger to the community or a flight risk, he said, while noting that he might amend the release order to consider any conditions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in consultation with her lawyers. Sessions said the government offered no evidence for why Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed. The U.S. Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment Friday afternoon. Ozturk was one of four students who wrote the opinion piece last year in campus newspaper The Tufts Daily. It criticized the university's response to student activists demanding that Tufts 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,' disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. On March 25 immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts and took her into custody. She was then driven to New Hampshire and Vermont and flown to a detention centre in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said. Ozturk's lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont. A State Department memo said Ozturk's visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ''may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization' including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.' A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group. This week a federal appeals court upheld Sessions' order to bring Ozturk back to New England for hearings to determine whether her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, were violated, as her lawyers argue. Immigration proceedings for Ozturk, initiated in Louisiana, are being conducted separately in that state and Ozturk can participate remotely, the court said.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Turkish Tufts University student back in Boston after release from Louisiana detention center
BOSTON (AP) — A Tufts University student from Turkey returned to Boston on Saturday, one day after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention center where she was held for over six weeks. Upon arrival at Logan Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a 'very difficult' period. 'In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,' she said. 'But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.' A federal judge ordered Ozturk's release Friday pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university's response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Ozturk said she will continue her case in the courts, adding, 'I have faith in the American system of justice.' She was joined by her lawyers and two of Massachusetts' Democratic members of Congress, Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley. 'Today is a tremendous day as we welcome you back, Rumeysa,' Markey said. 'You have made millions and millions of people across our country so proud of the way you have fought.' Appearing by video for her bail hearing the previous day, Ozturk, 30, detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate focusing on children and social media. U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Vermont ruled that she was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. She was not a danger to the community or a flight risk, he said, while noting that he might amend the release order to consider any conditions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in consultation with her lawyers. Sessions said the government offered no evidence for why Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed. The U.S. Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to an email message seeking comment Friday afternoon. Ozturk was one of four students who wrote the opinion piece last year in campus newspaper The Tufts Daily. It criticized the university's response to student activists demanding that Tufts 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,' disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. On March 25 immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts and took her into custody. She was then driven to New Hampshire and Vermont and flown to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said. Ozturk's lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont. A State Department memo said Ozturk's visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ''may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization' including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.' A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group. This week a federal appeals court upheld Sessions' order to bring Ozturk back to New England for hearings to determine whether her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, were violated, as her lawyers argue. Immigration proceedings for Ozturk, initiated in Louisiana, are being conducted separately in that state and Ozturk can participate remotely, the court said. ___ Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Michael Casey in Boston contributed.
Associated Press
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Turkish Tufts University student back in Boston after release from Louisiana detention center
BOSTON (AP) — A Tufts University student from Turkey returned to Boston on Saturday, one day after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention center where she was held for over six weeks. Upon arrival at Logan Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a 'very difficult' period. 'In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,' she said. 'But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.' A judge ordered Ozturk's release Friday pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university's response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Ozturk said she will continue her case in the courts, adding, 'I have faith in the American system of justice.' She was joined by her lawyers and two of Massachusetts' Democratic members of Congress, Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley. 'Today is a tremendous day as we welcome you back, Rumeysa,' Markey said. 'You have made millions and millions of people across our country so proud of the way you have fought.' Appearing by video for her bail hearing Friday, Ozturk, 30, detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate focusing on children and social media. U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Vermont ruled that she was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. She was not a danger to the community or a flight risk, he said, while noting that he might amend the release order to consider any conditions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in consultation with her lawyers. Sessions said the government offered no evidence for why Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed. The U.S. Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to an email message seeking comment Friday afternoon. Ozturk was one of four students who wrote the opinion piece last year in campus newspaper The Tufts Daily. It criticized the university's response to student activists demanding that Tufts 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,' disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel. On March 25 immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts and took her into custody. She was then driven to New Hampshire and Vermont and flown to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said. Ozturk's lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont. A State Department memo said Ozturk's visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ''may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization' including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.' A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group. This week a federal appeals court upheld Sessions' order to bring Ozturk back to New England for hearings to determine whether her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, were violated, as her lawyers argue. Immigration proceedings for Ozturk, initiated in Louisiana, are being conducted separately in that state and Ozturk can participate remotely, the court said. ___ Rush reported from Portland, Oregon. Associated Press writers Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Michael Casey in Boston contributed.
