A Tufts University student from Turkey being held in a Louisiana immigration facility must be returned to New England no later than May 1 to determine whether she was illegally detained for co-writing an op-ed piece in the student newspaper, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions said he would hear Rumeysa Ozturk鈥檚 request to be released from detention in Burlington, Vermont, with a bail hearing set for May 9 and a hearing on the petition's merits on May 22. Ozturk鈥檚 lawyers had requested that she be released immediately, or at least brought back to Vermont, while the Justice Department argued that an immigration court in Louisiana had jurisdiction.
鈥淭he Court concludes that this case will continue in this court with Ms. Ozturk physically present for the remainder of the proceedings,鈥� the judge wrote. 鈥淢s. Ozturk has presented viable and serious habeas claims which warrant urgent review on the merits. The Court plans to move expeditiously to a bail hearing and final disposition of the habeas petition, as Ms. Ozturk鈥檚 claims require no less.鈥�
The ruling came more than three weeks after masked immigration officials surrounded the 30-year-old doctoral student in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. An immigration judge denied her request for bond Wednesday, citing 鈥渄anger and flight risk鈥� as the rationale.
Ozturk is among whose visas were revoked or who have been stopped from entering the U.S. after they were accused of or . A Louisiana immigration judge has based on the federal government鈥檚 argument that he poses a national security risk.
Ozturk鈥檚 lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they didn鈥檛 know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. Ozturk herself said she unsuccessfully made multiple requests to speak to a lawyer.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university鈥檚 response to student activists demanding that Tufts 鈥渁cknowledge the Palestinian genocide,鈥� disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Ozturk鈥檚 lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. In his ruling, Sessions said she has 鈥減lausibly pled constitutional violations鈥� but said such pleadings weren't enough to warrant her immediate release.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said last month, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
Holly Ramer And Kathy Mccormack, The Associated Press
