Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07)
Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Markey joined Ms. Öztürk, her legal team, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts at a press conference. Last month, Rep. Pressley, Sen. Markey, and Rep. James P. McGovern traveled to ICE facilities in Basile and Jena, where Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil were being unlawfully detained and subjected to inhumane conditions in retaliation for their protected speech.
A full transcript of Congresswoman Pressley’s remarks at the press conference today is available below, and full video is available here.
Transcript: Rep. Pressley Welcomes Rümeysa Öztürk Home Following Her Release from ICE Detention
Boston Logan Airport
May 10, 2025
Thank you, Ed. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your ongoing partnership on so many issues of consequence. In particular, we’ve been shoulder to shoulder in the work of oversight of our carceral settings, our prisons, our jails, our detention facilities.
But before I get started, I do just, again, want to reiterate that if you care about mass incarceration, you should care about mass deportation. If you care about mass deportation, you should care about mass incarceration.
This is not only the grave injustice that Rümeysa, Mahmoud, Mohsen and many more have experienced is not only inhumane and cruel, but incredibly profitable. These are facilities owned by corporations, and the same way that those private prisons benefit from mass incarceration, these private detention centers, facilities benefit from mass deportation and incarceration. So I did just want to name that.
You know, y’all, I don’t know if I can stick to my remarks here, because I’m just overwhelmed. One, Rümeysa is home, and two, the Celtics won. But you know, seriously, just bringing a little levity, because we’re long overdue for some joy.
The second I saw Rümeysa, I just exclaimed loudly “My sister.” I felt an immediate kinship with her.
And as we approach Mother’s Day, it is important that – and I think the public outcry and the rallying has been a testament to the fact that we see Rümeysa as our sister, we see Rümeysa as our daughter.
And that is, in fact, how a community should rally and see one another when a harm is done to anyone, because we are one human family and our destinies are truly tied.
I was also excited to be able to gift Rümeysa with a polished stone with the word “Hope” engraved that I had been carrying for weeks.
I had two stones with me when we went to rural Louisiana. And again, I thank Senator Markey for steadfast leadership and partnership, my brother colleague, Jim McGovern, for journeying together to rural Louisiana, and I had a polished stone with the word “Courage” engraved for Mahmoud, and a polished stone with the word “Hope” engraved for Rümeysa.
But ultimately, having visited Jena and the Basile facilities, I decided not to gift it to them, because I was pretty sure it would be confiscated. So I was so excited to be able to place that in the palm of her hand today, because I just wanted her to not lose hope and to know that we had come to see about her, and we were going to continue to do that until she was free.
So today we come together to welcome home a beloved member of the Massachusetts 7th community, a brilliant scholar, a courageous advocate, and a survivor of a shameful injustice: Rümeysa Öztürk.
Today marks a significant step forward and a victory, a victory for Rümeysa, a victory for due process, and a victory for our democracy.
But it is also a somber day, and I know it is bittersweet for Rümeysa, because Rümeysa should never have been abducted and ripped away from her community in Somerville in the first place.
She should never have had her visa revoked. She should never have been transported almost 2,000 miles away to an ICE facility in rural Louisiana and subjected to squalid, inhumane conditions.
She should never have suffered multiple asthma attacks and feared for her life so far away from home.
Last year, Rümeysa authored an op-ed that centered the dignity and humanity of every person and was critical of her university’s response to the crisis in Gaza. She exercised her fundamental First Amendment right. In citing nothing more than an op-ed, she was met with the full force of Donald Trump’s authoritarian project, silenced, detained and punished.
Rümeysa, we work each morning — since then, we’ve worked with you on our mind.
Massachusetts did not forget about you for a minute. Your classmates and your neighbors peacefully gathered in the street, lawyers, elected officials and people of good conscience from every walk of life spoke your name daily.
Carol, Mahsa, Jesse ensured that this was the case.
I also have the incredible good fortune to spend time with people who’ve been privileged enough to know Rümeysa, some for five years, some for seven years, some for 10 years. And I was remarking that I’m jealous they’ve known her that long, because true enough, she is courageous and a bright light, and all of it is contagious.
But we refused to be silent, sounding the alarm on this injustice and elevating your story time and again, Rümeysa.
And yesterday, the federal court ordered Rümeysa released on bail.
When we traveled to Louisiana last month to meet with Rümeysa, what we saw was unconscionable. Rümeysa was being denied proper medical care, left to suffer through intense and worsening asthma attacks without prescribed medications, forced to endure inadequate meals and religious accommodations, denied even basic necessities and subjected to inhumane living conditions.
Rümeysa, I shared upon our arrival, when Senator Markey and Congressman McGovern and I landed here at Logan, upon leaving here, I went right to Somerville for what had been a long scheduled town hall, and I shared with our Somerville community and the public what you told me of the constant fear, the trauma of being torn away from the community you love, the community that you have given so much to.
But Rümeysa’s spirit was unwavering, and her light shone through for all of us to see.
When you sat down with us Rümeysa, you spoke first of the women detained alongside you. You carried with you in your heart and in neatly copious written notes, like the qualified researcher that you are, their stories, their fears, their urgent medical conditions, their worry that they had been abandoned.
I was haunted by those words where Rümeysa said, “the women here have cried aloud. Has God forgotten about us? Has the world forgotten about us?”
Rümeysa’s experience was not just an act of cruelty. Was a deliberate, coordinated attempt to intimidate, to instill fear, and to send a chilling message to anyone who dares to speak out against injustice.
I’ve said it before, Donald Trump is a dictator. A dictator seeks to silence dissenting voices. He wants a citizenry that is ignorant and uninformed, a citizenry that is indifferent to the suffering of a neighbor, a citizenry that is inactive.
Today, we’re sending a message of our own to this White House: your efforts to silence Rümeysa, to crush dissent, to undermine our fundamental rights are being rejected.
Rümeysa, my sister, our sister, we welcome you home with open arms.
We never forgot about you. You are loved, you are seen, and we will not rest until you are fully exonerated, your visa is restored, and you are free to continue your studies and your service to our community.
But let us also be clear, this fight is not over. Rümeysa is released on bail, but her deportation proceedings continue.
So while we take stock of this important victory, made possible because of the dedicated people behind me and thousands more, because of public outcry, we are clear-eyed about the work that remains.
To everyone who has stood with Rümeysa, who was spoken out, who has joined in this fight — in Congress, in the courts and in community — thank you.
We would not be here today if it weren’t for you. Our work is not done, but we are stronger together.
Throughout my time in public life, I’ve had the privilege and emotional honor throughout these years to say these two words to many people upon their return from prisons, jails and detention facilities: welcome home.
This week, Congresswoman Pressley, along with Senator Markey, Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, Congressman Jim McGovern, and Congressman Troy Carter sent a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking more information on the detention conditions of immigrants held at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center (CLIPC) and the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center (SLIPC) after an oversight trip to the facilities last month.
On May 7, 2025, Pressley, Markey, and McGovern applauded the Second Circuit for ordering Rümeysa’s transfer from ICE custody in Louisiana to Vermont and rejecting the Trump administration’s attempt to delay complying with a lower court order to do so.
Rep. Pressley, along with Sens. Warren and Markey, have pushed for answers and action since Öztürk’s March arrest. In March, they led over 30 lawmakers in writing to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Acting Director for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons, demanding information about Öztürk’s arrest and detention as well as similar incidents across the country.