A federal judge ruled late Friday that Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts University grad student from Turkey who was arrested by immigration authorities last month, should be returned to Vermont while the case challenging the constitutionality of her arrest moves forward in Burlington.
Judge William K. Sessions III instructed the federal government to transfer Ozturk from Louisiana, where she has been held for the last three weeks, to Vermont ahead of a May 9 bail hearing.
Sessions stayed his order for four days to allow time for any appeals but said that the feds must move Ozturk no later than May 1. He also scheduled a hearing on May 22 to focus on the merits of Ozturk’s legal challenge.
The ruling represents a victory for Ozturk and her legal team, who have been tangling with federal prosecutors for weeks now about whether her legal challenge should proceed — and if so, where.
Ozturk is among hundreds of international students who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s purported crackdown on antisemitism across college campuses.
Federal authorities have accused her of engaging in activities “in support of Hamas” without evidence. Ozturk’s attorneys say she was targeted for cowriting an op-ed in a student newspaper that criticized the university’s response to the war in Gaza.
Her March 25 arrest in Massachusetts made national headlines after video was released showing masked immigration authorities plucking her off the street near her Boston-area apartment. She was later moved to Vermont, where she stayed the night ahead of a 4 a.m. flight to Louisiana.
She’s now involved in two federal court cases: one about her immigration case, the other challenging her arrest, which her attorneys say violated her rights to free speech and due process.
Burlington Protesters Call for Release of Tufts Grad Student
Burlington Protesters Call for Release of Tufts Grad Student
By Colin Flanders
News
The case challenging her arrest landed in Vermont after a judge in Massachusetts ruled she did not have jurisdiction. That’s because Ozturk’s attorneys filed their case there after she had already been taken out of that state, prompting federal prosecutors to argue that the petition should either be dismissed or heard in Louisiana — a state with one of the most conservative appeals courts.
Ozturk’s attorneys have maintained that they couldn’t have possibly known where she was at the time because immigration authorities refused to share her location with them.
They have accused the federal government of trying to “game the system” by “hopscotching” their client around the country in an attempt to find a more receptive court for what they describe as a blatantly unconstitutional arrest.
Sessions seemed sympathetic to the argument. In his ruling on Friday, he wrote that because Ozturk’s location was kept secret, her case should be heard wherever she was at the moment her petition was filed: 10:02 p.m. on March 25. By then, Ozturk was on her way to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in St. Albans, making Vermont the correct venue in which to proceed, Sessions wrote.
The judge also determined that Ozturk’s attorneys have raised “viable and serious” constitutional claims, ones that demand him to move “expeditiously.”
Members of Ozturk’s legal team celebrated Sessions’ order in a press release on Friday night.
“Today’s ruling rightfully affirms that the government cannot undermine the justice system and attempt to manipulate a case’s jurisdiction by secretly transporting and imprisoning someone over a thousand miles from home,” said Lia Ernst, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
Ozturk’s case is being closely followed in Vermont despite her lack of ties to the area. Hundreds of people rallied outside Burlington’s federal courthouse on Monday to protest her detainment.
She has also received support from more than two dozen Jewish organizations, who filed a brief in court last week objecting to the government’s treatment of her.