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A New York-based federal appeals court has ordered Donald Trump’s administration to transfer Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk from an immigration detention center in Louisiana to Vermont.
The case of Ozturk, a Turkish international student and former Fulbright scholar working towards her doctorate in child development, is among several high-profile cases at the center of the Trump administration’s targeting of international students for their advocacy for Palestine during Israel’s war in Gaza.
In March, Ozturk’s visa was revoked and she was arrested and detained by plain-clothes federal agents outside her apartment in Massachusetts in what her lawyers argue is a retaliatory attempt to deport her over an op-ed she wrote in a student newspaper.
The government has one week to transfer her, according to Wednesday’s order, which arrived less than 24 hours after a hearing in which government attorneys failed to say whether they even agree with the administration’s position that her pro-Palestine speech is not constitutionally protected.
Appellate Judge Barrington Parker, who was appointed by George W. Bush, pressed Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether Ozturk’s statements — and statements from another international student who was arrested for support for Palestine — amount to protected speech.
“Your honor, we haven’t taken a position on that,” Ensign replied.
“Help my thinking. Take a position,” Parked fired back.
“I don’t have authority to take a position,” Ensign said.
Ozturk has been locked up in a rural Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana for more than 100 days. In sworn statements in court documents, she reported experiencing several asthma attacks and sharing a cell with more than 20 others in cramped and unsanitary conditions.
Her detention is “unprecedented and shocking,” according to Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
“She has been held behind bars for six weeks while her health deteriorates for writing an op-ed,” she told a three-judge appeals court panel Wednesday. “Detention is not the norm with respect to visa revocation, as we had here. The executive branch made a specific decision to detain Ms. Ozturk that was motivated by her speech.”
Last month, Vermont District Judge William K. Session ordered Ozturk’s transfer to a detention center in the state, noting that her case has “raised significant constitutional concerns with her arrest and detention which merit full and fair consideration in this forum.”
The Trump administration appealed the order, arguing that Ozturk can be deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked against dozens of international students who he claims have “adverse” impacts to the country’s foreign policy.
But the administration does not appear to possess any evidence backing up claims of antisemitism and support for a terrorist organization to justify her arrest, according to court filings and government memos.
“No one should be arrested and locked up for their political views,” Bhandari said in a statement Wednesday. “Every day that RRumeysa Ozturk remains in detention is a day too long. We’re grateful the court refused the government’s attempt to keep her isolated from her community and her legal counsel as she pursues her case for release.”
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