A federal judge in Louisiana has denied bond for a Tufts University student who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last month.
Attorneys for Rumeysa Ozturk have asked a U.S. District Court judge to order her sent to Vermont from Louisiana, where she has been held since she was taken into custody by immigration officials as she walked along a street in Somerville on March 25.
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WATCH HEREBut in a ruling issued Wednesday, the immigration judge denied bond, which means Ozturk will not be released on bail.
Ozturk, 30, is among several people with ties to American universities whose visas were revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S. after they were accused of attending demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians.
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SIGN UP She was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
“Ultimately, unfortunately, the heart of what's happening is that she is stuck in detention for an op-ed,” her immigration attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai, said outside the federal building in Burlington after Monday's hearing.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said last month, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
A State Department memorandum showed that Ozturk's student visa was revoked on March 21 following an assessment that she had been involved in associations "‘that may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus."
The Washington Post reported Sunday that another memorandum, written by an office within the State Department before Ozturk was detained, determined that there was no evidence showing that she took part in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization.
