A federal judge has rejected federal prosecutors' request to pause his order that a Turkish Tufts University student being detained by immigration authorities in Louisiana return to Vermont within one week.
Thursday's order from U.S. District Judge William Sessions is the latest update in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, whose detention by immigration officials as she walked along a street in Somerville on March 25 was caught on video. Her lawyers say she was taken in apparent retaliation for an op-ed piece on Israel and Palestine that she co-wrote in the student newspaper.
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WATCH HEREThe case has garnered national attention — this week, Sen. Ed Markey and Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern traveled to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana, where Ozturk is being held, over the objections of her legal team.
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SIGN UP Ozturk was quickly taken from Massachusetts to Vermont, and then to Louisiana, in the hours after her detention, which led to a series of hearings over which court should address legal questions involved in her arrest.
Sessions previously ordered that Ozturk be brought back to Vermont but gave both sides four days to appeal. On Thursday, he denied the Department of Justice's request that he continue to pause his order while they appeal it.
"The government is now obligated to ensure that Ms. Ozturk is transferred to ICE custody within the District of Vermont no later than May 1, 2025," Sessions said in his Thursday afternoon order.
He said that delaying the transfer would "would likely disrupt or delay the Court’s proceedings, potentially prolonging the very detention that is at the heart of this case," and that returning the graduate student "would not unduly burden the government and would restore the status quo at the time of the order from the District Court in Massachusetts."
Ozturk 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 expressing support for Palestinians.
Ozturk’s lawyers have challenged the legal authority for ICE’s detention, while a lawyer for the Justice Department has said her case should be dismissed, saying the immigration court has jurisdiction.
Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts. Initially, they didn’t know where she was. They said they were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. Ozturk herself said she unsuccessfully made multiple requests to speak to a lawyer.
Ozturk 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.
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.
