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UNI Global Union's U.S. affiliate, SEIU, is staging protests across the country against the detention of immigrant workers, including SEIU members. The protests demand the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a member of SEIU Local 509 and a Tufts University graduate student, who was detained in Boston by federal agents last month.
SEIU President April Verrett stated that Ozturk was "snatched by masked federal immigration authorities on Tuesday night on her way to Ramadan services. Her arrest, with no charges filed, is yet another chilling example of this administration’s efforts to use immigration actions to target and silence people merely for criticizing U.S. policy in the Middle East. Ozturk, from Turkey, had a valid student visa, and her lawyer has no idea where she has been taken or why, though she had recently co-authored an op-ed in the student newspaper in support of the people of Palestine."
The U.S. government has not provided any evidence to justify Ozturk's detention. The Washington Post reported on a leaked State Department memo that found no wrongdoing by Ozturk and suggested that her arrest might have been politically motivated.
