Rümeysa Öztürk in Her Own Words

[Is this the kind of world we envision for our children?]
In a piece co-published by Vanity Fair and The Tufts Daily, Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk describes her reprehensible 45 days in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Her resilience and grace are astounding, and an incredible contrast to the inhumanity of her oppressors.

Over the next six and a half weeks, I found myself immersed daily in the love, beauty, resilience and compassion of these women. We each found ourselves trapped in our own individual nightmares, but we found comfort and relief in one another, and we shared our burden and pain by listening to each other.

…

Each conversation turned into a group therapy session where we would gather to open up about the grief we felt regarding the harsh realities and dehumanization occurring in a godforsaken, for-profit ICE prison in America, the place we had all come to pursue our dreams.

In her closing, Öztürk asks:

How is it possible to feel both unlucky and fortunate at the same time? How can suffering and compassion coexist in the same environment?

The positives of that dichotomy are the silver lining Öztürk has found. I hope it helps her through. But we must not accept this as normal. Every single American should read this piece, and every single American should feel shame after having done so.

Link: https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/07/op-ed-even-god-cannot-hear-us-here-what-i-witnessed-inside-an-ice-womens-prison?emci=188ffd7d-9362-f011-8dc9-6045bdfe8e9c&emdi=dc4c8405-0e63-f011-8dc9-6045bdfe8e9c&ceid=350849