A federal judge ordered President Donald Trump's administration on Friday to transfer a Tufts University student being held in Louisiana to Vermont while he weighs her claims that US immigration authorities unlawfully arrested her based on her pro-Palestinian advocacy.
The decision by US District Judge William Sessions in Burlington marked an early victory for Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, in her continuing bid to be released from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency's custody and return to her studies following her March 25 arrest in Massachusetts.
Ozturk's arrest by masked agents on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville was captured in a viral video that has turned her case into a high-profile example of the Republican president's efforts to deport pro-Palestinian activists on US campuses who have spoken out against Israel's war in Gaza. Ozturk is a PhD student and Fulbright scholar studying at Tufts, located in Massachusetts.
The US State Department has revoked her student visa, citing an opinion piece she co-authored in her university's student newspaper that criticized the response by Tufts to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel after the onset of war and to "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide."
Her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union have said that is the sole basis that has been provided by the government for her arrest, which they argued so clearly violated her free speech and due process rights under the US Constitution that she should be released.
The case has become a flashpoint in the administration's rapid moves to revoke the visas and legal status of hundreds of international students, including pro-Palestinian activists, as part of Trump's hardline approach to immigration.
Sessions during an April 14 hearing questioned whether the administration would insist it could not release Ozturk even if he declared her arrest unlawful, potentially resulting in a "constitutional crisis."
His question echoed broader concerns raised by legal experts and Democrats in recent weeks about whether the Trump administration would comply with unfavorable rulings amid tensions with the federal judiciary.
Further efforts challenging her arrest
The night before Ozturk was transferred to Louisiana, a lawyer for her sued in Massachusetts to challenge her arrest. A judge quickly ordered authorities to not remove Ozturk from Massachusetts without 48 hours notice.
Yet by the time the lawsuit was filed, Ozturk was already out of state and was being held in Vermont, from where she was flown the next day to Louisiana.
Rather than dismiss the case as the administration wanted, a federal judge in Boston on April 4 determined it could still be heard in Vermont, given that was where she was when the lawsuit was filed, and sent it there.
Her lawyers during an April 14 hearing urged Sessions, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, to order Ozturk immediately released on bail or, alternatively, to require her to be moved to Vermont and out of the detention facility in Basile, Louisiana.
Her lawyers have said that since being taken into ICE custody, Ozturk has suffered several asthma attacks and her health will remain at risk while at the facility in Louisiana, which "is notorious for its inadequate medical care."
