A Tufts University student who was detained by US immigration authorities this week, in an arrest that caused widespread outrage, cannot be deported without a court order, a US judge ordered on Friday.
Rümeysa Öztürk, 30, was detained by masked, plainclothes officers as she walked in a Boston-area suburb on Tuesday, an incident that was captured on surveillance footage that has since gone viral. Öztürk, who is being threatened with deportation to Turkey, is a Fulbright scholar and doctoral student in the US with a visa.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said Öztürk’s visa was terminated, accusing her of engaging in activities in support of Hamas, but providing no evidence to substantiate that claim. Her attorneys, which include lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, have said the arrest appeared to be retaliation for an opinion piece that she and three other students co-wrote for the student newspaper last year, advocating that the university “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel”.
After Öztürk’s lawyers filed an amended complaint on Friday, the US district judge Denise Casper issued a brief order stipulating that Öztürk “shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court”. The judge also ordered the US government to respond to Öztürk’s latest claims by Tuesday evening.
Öztürk has not been charged with or accused of any crime, her lawyers say.
“This is a first step in getting Rümeysa released and back home to Boston so she can continue her studies. But we never should have gotten here in the first place: Rümeysa’s experience is shocking, cruel, and unconstitutional,” Mahsa Khanbabai, one of her attorneys, said in a statement on Friday evening. “Criticizing US foreign policy and human rights violations is neither illegal nor grounds for detention … The government must immediately release Rümeysa to continue her studies and rejoin her community.”
The Trump administration has increasingly sought to deport students and academics who had varying degrees of involvement in pro-Palestinian campus activism last year, including permanent residents with green cards.
Öztürk was on the phone with her mother and headed to an Iftar to break her Ramadan fast with friends when the officers confronted and apprehended her, the Boston Globe reported. A 32-year-old whose camera captured the arrest told the AP it “looked like a kidnapping”.
Khanbabai had written emergency filings on Tuesday, which secured a court ruling that her client not be removed from Massachusetts without advance notice. Despite that order from US district judge Indira Talwani, officials with Immigration and Custom Enforcement (Ice), which is part of DHS, transferred Öztürk to Louisiana without notifying her counsel, the court or US Department of Justice lawyers, according to the ACLU.
For nearly a full day after her arrest, Öztürk’s family, attorneys and friends could not locate or reach her, and when lawyers did finally speak with her, they learned Öztürk had suffered an asthma attack while being transported to Louisiana, the ACLU says.
When questioned by reporters about her arrest, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, suggested the US was revoking visas from “people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States”, saying international students don’t have a right to “become a social activist that tears up our university campuses”.
Öztürk’s friends told the Boston Globe, however, that she was not much of an activist and not a leader in protests last year. They said Öztürk volunteered with refugee children, participated in interfaith gatherings and studied the representation of youth in media. Her brother said she had roughly 10 months left in her doctorate degree.
“Grabbing someone off the streets, stripping them of their student visa, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is an affront to all of our constitutional rights,” Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, said in a statement. “We will not stop fighting until Ms Öztürk is free to return to her loved ones and until we know the government will not abuse immigration law to punish those who speak up for what they believe.”
The Trump administration has also gone after students and academics at Columbia University, Georgetown, Cornell, Brown and other campuses.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
