Congresswoman Also Discussed her Fight to Protect Federal Workers, Social Security and Medicaid, Federal Education Funding, and More

Video (YouTube)

SOMERVILLE – At a town hall yesterday at Somerville High School, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) discussed her meeting in Louisiana with Somerville resident Rümeysa Öztürk and outlined how she’s fighting back against Donald Trump’s cruel and callous agenda to divide communities and impose wholesale harm.

Having returned earlier in the day from Louisiana, Congresswoman Pressley shone light on her experience meeting with Ms. Öztürk, a Tufts PhD student, at the ICE facility where she is being unlawfully detained. She exposed the indignities, injustice, and fear that Rümeysa has endured – and how she remains kind-hearted, courageous, and committed to centering the humanity and dignity of all people.

The Congresswoman, joined for the town hall by Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, also took questions and discussed her efforts to fight back against the Trump-Musk cuts to critical federal programs like Social Security and Medicaid, her support for our federal workers and immigrant neighbors, her defense of federal Department of Education funding, and more.

A transcript with highlights from the Congresswoman’s opening remarks are available below (edited lightly for clarity), and video is available here.

Transcript: At Somerville Town Hall, Pressley Details Meeting with Detained Somerville Resident Rümeysa Öztürk
U.S. House of Representatives
April 24, 2025

Truly, it is so good to be home.

I just landed at Logan this morning returning from my trip to rural Louisiana to meet with my constituent and your neighbor Rümeysa.

Rümeysa, who has been unjustly detained as a political prisoner after being abducted from the streets of Somerville, has been detained for over a month now by ICE.

Many of you have seen the video – the harrowing video. And I wanted to thank the concerned community member and bystander. Rümeysa asked me to say that, for filming that video in the first place.

Rümeysa was taken by plainclothes officers, hurried into an unmarked car, shackled.

She shared with me that when they transitioned her from handcuffs to shackles, she thought surely she was going to bee killed, but they would torture her before.

She had no idea where she was going, why she had been abducted.

She was sent over a thousand miles away to a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana.

Let me begin by recognizing that she is detained in a for-profit facility owned and operated by a multi-billion dollar corporation. Now, I have fought long and hard against the use of private prisons and the exploitation of people in carceral settings.

And that also applies to the immigration system. Which is why I believe if you care about mass deportations, you should care about mass incarceration. And if you care about mass incarceration, you should care about mass deportations. They are two sides of the same coin.

Now, Rümeysa was transported from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Georgia and then finally to rural Louisiana. So I went to rural Louisiana to see about her.

Alongside me was Senator Markey and Congressman McGovern. And I want to acknowledge the leadership of my brother colleague Congressman Troy Carter of Louisiana and Ranking Member Bennie Thompson who leads the House Homeland Security Committee for organizing this CODEL, this fact-finding mission.

The meeting with Rümeysa was a true testament to her character. She was kind, despite the cruelty she endured. She was dressed in an orange jumpsuit and wearing the same hijab she was arrested in.

I could feel her uneasiness. Yet she spent most of the meeting not talking about herself, but advocating for the other women locked in the facility – she had with her copious handwritten notes, putting her research skills as a PhD student to work. 

Rümeysa is enduring indignities that no one should ever have to. Denied access to legal counsel, denied access to toilet tissue even, for three days. Experiencing sleep deprivation, malnutrition, frigid temperatures. She has suffered multiple asthma attacks, and the medical care is grossly insufficient and culturally incompetent. Rümeysa shared that a nurse removed her hijab without consent.

For her and many other women we met with, the fear was palpable. They wept openly, visibly shaken. They expressed fear of never seeing their loved ones again. Fear of deportation from the only country they call home. Fear of retaliation just for being honest about their confinement.

Despite Rümeysa’s fear – actually, in spite of her fear – Rümeysa remains kind-hearted and courageous.

I asked her pointedly if she had a message for the people of Somerville and she told me to tell all of you: thank you for being her community.

On that frightful day when she was surrounded by ICE agents and unsure of what would happen to her, she looked up. She saw a neighbor that she didn’t know, hadn’t spoken to, and was pretty much a stranger. But that neighbor was recording the arrest and when they made eye contact, the neighbor raised their hand as if to say to Rümeysa: I am with you.

And she expressed just how much that meant to her, that it gave her comfort in that moment, after she had screamed, that someone cared. That she didn’t know how much they had captured but it gave her some calm, that someone had seen what had happened and maybe they will be able to help me.

And today, more than a thousand miles away, we are still with Rümeysa.

The Massachusetts 7th is not simply a congressional district; it is a community.

And in the face of a dictator, we will resist – because the only way to beat a dictator is with defiance.

That is why I am demanding answers from Marco Rubio on why Rümeysa’s visa was revoked despite a State Department memo saying she did nothing wrong.

That is why I am demanding that ICE comply with the judge’s ruling that they bring her back to New England.

That is why I am leveraging my power on the Committee on Oversight to go into these detention facilities and ensure every person is treated with dignity and respect, and have their constitutional right to due process.

Remember, this is much bigger than Rümeysa. It’s a policy of cruelty and a system of chaos.

For those who might be tempted to marginalize or to other who might be vulnerable, Donald Trump is coming after all of us.

If you are an immigrant, regardless of your status – be it as a DACA recipient, a naturalized citizen, a TPS holder, a student visa, an asylum seeker – he seeks to do things that are harmful and unconstitutional and unlawful.

I’m sure you heard him on that hot mic moment in the Oval Office, saying that he will eventually look to deport people with criminal records.

Again, blatantly unconstitutional and incredible ironic given his own criminal record.

But it is consistent, as a dictator, he seeks to silence dissent.

So when I say he is coming for all of us, I mean it could be you tomorrow. It could be you tomorrow for suffering a miscarriage. It could be you tomorrow for reading a banned book. It could be you tomorrow simply for being Black. It could be you tomorrow for being trans. It could be you tomorrow for practicing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It could be you tomorrow for co-authoring an op-ed, practicing free speech.

Our freedoms and our destinies are truly tied.

In a letter James Baldwin wrote to Angela Y. Davis, he said: ‘If they take you in the morning, they will surely be coming for us that night.’

And that is the truth.

So I am ten toes down, fighting for this district every day. It is a true honor and privilege to be your Congresswoman – I don’t take it for granted, not for a minute.

You deserve someone who fights for you in Washington like you are family – because you are.

And with that let’s get into a dialogue and answer as many of your questions as we can in this time we have together today. Thank you for being here.

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