WASHINGTON

US Sen. Ed Markey on Wednesday called the detention of Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk a "national disgrace."

"What has happened to Rumeysa Ozturk is ... a national disgrace," Markey told reporters at Logan Airport in Boston.

A delegation of Democratic lawmakers, including Markey, congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Rep. Jim McGovern, traveled Tuesday to the state of Louisiana to meet Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, who remain in custody at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.

Ozturk, a Fulbright scholar and PhD student in child and human development at Tufts University, was detained March 25 by masked ICE agents outside her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Markey said Ozturk has not been charged with a crime and the government does not have any evidence that she "poses a danger" to the community.

"She told us she was afraid. ...They were rough with her," he said.

Calling the detentions "authoritarianism," the senator demanded the release of Ozturk and Khalil.

"Rumeysa is suffering as anyone would in this circumstance because of that unconstitutional action.

"Freedom of speech and the right to due process are not suggestions in our country," he said.

Pressley said Ozturk has not committed a crime.

Similarly, she said Khalil has not been convicted of any crime.

"He was simply exercising his right to free speech, something that should be protected, not punish.

"And now, instead of being home with his wife and their newborn son, he is being unlawfully detained,” she said. “This is cruel, it is unjust, and it is unacceptable."

Khalil, a legal permanent resident married to a US citizen, was arrested for his participation in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Despite having no criminal charges against him, he was recently denied a temporary release to attend the birth of his first child.

McGovern said the Trump administration is holding students as political prisoners, depriving them of due process to "silence them."

"We won't stop fighting until they're released," he added.

The Trump administration has defended the detentions by invoking a rarely used section of immigration law that allows the government to deport individuals whose presence is deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

Ozturk and Khalil are challenging their detentions in court. Ozturk’s lawyers argue that her writings are constitutionally protected speech.