Betar ‘almost exclusively triggered’ former student’s detention, judge says
A federal judge ordered ICE to release Efe Ercelik
UMass Amherst students head across campus in 2014. Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
By Hannah Feuer May 9, 2025
A federal judge ordered the release of a former student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from prison Friday, arguing the detention appeared to have “been almost exclusively triggered” by the militant Zionist group Betar.
Efe Ercelik, who came to the U.S. on a student visa from Turkey, was originally arrested in November 2023 and charged with assaulting a Jewish student at a rally. At the time, Ercelik pleaded not guilty and was released on $250 bail. He left UMass in May 2024. He later pleaded guilty to misdemeanors with no required jail time.
About a year and a half after his arrest, Betar USA posted to X: “We identify Efe Ercelik as one here on a visa and we have submitted his name for deportation. There’s so many of these bastards nationwide he’s an egregious one in Massachusetts, a rotten state.”
The next day, Ercelik’s visa was revoked. He was taken into custody on Wednesday.
Ercelik’s 2023 arrest occurred when UMass Amherst Hillel hosted a rally featuring Shabbat tables set up with an empty seat for each of the hostages being held by Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack. According to the Anti-Defamation League, which filed a civil rights complaint about the incident, Ercelik approached the group, gave the attending students the middle finger, punched and kicked a Jewish student, and stole an Israeli flag before stabbing it with a knife and throwing it into the trash can.
“If you can’t eat pork, why are you walking around like a bunch of fat f—ing pigs?” Ercelik reportedly told the Jewish student he assaulted, according to the ADL complaint filed with the Education Department last year.
Judge Angel Kelley wrote in her decision that while Ercelik’s physical altercation with another protester was not protected, speech such as “engaging in a counter protest, waving of a Palestinian flag, the showing of his middle fingers, and his political, albeit sometimes crude, speech, all in the name of advocating for the Palestinian people” fell under the First Amendment.
Kelley also noted that Ercelik had purchased a plane ticket to return to Turkey. In her decision, she argued that the government was contradicting itself in detaining Ercelik, since Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had called self-deportation the “safest option for our law enforcement” and a “70% savings for US taxpayers.”
“It rises to the level of near absurdity,” Kelley wrote.
Correction: The headline on this story has been updated to reflect that Efe Ercelik is a former student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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