Turkish Tufts University student released from Louisiana immigration
detention center
[May 10, 2025]
By KATHY McCORMACK
A Tufts University student from Turkey was released from a Louisiana
immigration detention center Friday, more than six weeks after she was
arrested walking on the street of a Boston suburb.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington ordered the release
of Rumeysa Ozturk pending a final decision on her claim that she’s been
illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that
criticized the school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. A photo
provided by her legal team showed her outside, smiling with her
attorneys in Louisiana, where the immigration proceedings will continue.
“Despite an 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force
her to wear an ankle monitor, Rumeysa is now free and is excited to
return home, free of monitoring or restriction,” attorney Mahsa
Khanbabai said.
Even before her release, Ozturk's supporters cheered the decision,
punctuating an earlier news conference held by her attorneys with chants
of “She is free!”
“What we heard from the court today is what we have been saying for
weeks, and what courts have continued to repeat up and down through the
litigation of this case thus far,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at the
ACLU of Massachusetts, told reporters. "There’s absolutely no evidence
that justifies detaining Ozturk for a single day, let alone the six and
a half weeks that she has been detained, because she wrote a single
op-ed in her student newspaper exercising her First Amendment right to
express an opinion.”
Appearing by video for her bail hearing, Ozturk, 30, detailed her
growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her
doctorate degree focusing on children and social media while appearing
remotely at her bail hearing from the Louisiana center. She and her
lawyer hugged after hearing the judge's decision.
“Completing my Ph.D. is very important to me,” she testified. She had
been on track to finish her work in December when she was arrested.
Ozturk was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel
restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the
community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to
consider any specific conditions by ICE in consultation with her
lawyers.
Sessions said the government had offered no evidence about why Ozturk
was arrested other than the op-ed.
“This is a woman who is just totally committed to her academic career,”
Sessions said. “This is someone who probably doesn't have a whole lot of
other things going on other than reaching out to other members of the
community in a caring and compassionate way."
A message seeking comment was emailed Friday afternoon to the U.S.
Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Sessions told Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher he wants to know
immediately when she is released.
Sessions said Ozturk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment
and due process rights, as well as her health. She testified Friday that
she has had 12 asthma attacks since her detention, starting with a
severe one at the Atlanta airport.
[to top of second column]
|
This photo provided by the Ozturk legal team shows Rumeysa Ozturk,
center, with Nora Ahmed of ACLU Louisiana and Mahsa Khanbabai of
Khanbabai Law on Friday, May 9, 2025, in Basile, La., shortly after
her release from an immigration detention center. (Ozturk legal team
via AP)
“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.
Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts on March 25
and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a
plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa
had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of
that, her lawyers said.
Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in
Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable
to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A
Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.
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 said Friday that if she is released, Tufts would offer her
housing and her lawyers and friends would drive her to future court
hearings. She is expected to return to New England on Saturday at
the earliest.
“I will follow all the rules,” she said.
A State Department memo said Ozturk’s visa was revoked following an
assessment that her actions ”‘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.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March,
without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk
engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated
terrorist group.
“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did
speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?”
Khanbabai asked. “I am thankful that the courts have been ruling in
favor of detained political prisoners, like Rumeysa.”
____
Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and
Michael Casey in Boston, contributed to this report.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
