Detained Tufts student taken from Massachusetts before judge ordered her kept there, government says
BOSTON (AP) — A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey who was detained by immigration authorities had been moved to Vermont by the time a federal judge ordered authorities to keep her in Massachusetts, lawyers for the U.S. government said.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. She was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in remote Basile, Louisiana.
On Friday, a federal judge in Boston, responding to a petition filed by Ozturk’s lawyers, said Ozturk can’t be removed from the United States “until further order of this court.”
But on Tuesday, lawyers for the Justice Department argued that the judge lacks jurisdiction to decide Ozturk’s case. They said Ozturk’s lawyers had to file her petition in the jurisdiction where she was confined, The Boston Globe reported. They said the case should be dismissed or transferred to Louisiana, and that any challenge belonged in immigration court.
Ozturk’s lawyers have said that her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. It asked the judge to order that she be immediately returned to Massachusetts and released from custody.
Rallies in support of Ozturk were held in Boston and at Tufts University on Tuesday.
Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who have recently had visas revoked or been stopped from entering the U.S.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed the termination of Ozturk’s visa last week, saying investigations found Oztruk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. The department did not provide evidence of that support.
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist, to tear up our university campuses,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week when asked about Ozturk. during a stop in Guyana.
Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in an attack that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and during which about 250 hostages were seized. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and destroyed much of the enclave.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily last year that criticized the university’s response to student demands that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
Friends have said Ozturk was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel.