Turkish Tufts University student detained by ICE can be sent to Vermont, appeals court rules

A national appeals tribunal connected Wednesday granted a judge’s bid to bring a Turkish Tufts University pupil from a Louisiana migration detention halfway backmost to New England for hearings to find whether her rights were violated.

A judicial sheet of the New York-based U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled successful the lawsuit of Rumeysa Ozturk aft lawyers representing her and the U.S. Justice Department presented arguments astatine a proceeding Tuesday. Ozturk has been detained for six weeks.

The tribunal ordered Ozturk to beryllium transferred to ICE custody successful Vermont nary aboriginal than May 14.

A territory tribunal justice successful Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral pupil beryllium brought to the authorities for hearings to find whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s lawyers accidental her detention violates her law rights, including escaped code and owed process.

The Justice Department, which appealed that ruling, said that an migration tribunal successful Louisiana has jurisdiction implicit her case.

Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk arsenic she walked on a thoroughfare successful a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont earlier putting her connected a level to a detention halfway successful Basile, Louisiana.

Ozturk was 1 of 4 students who wrote an op-ed successful the field newspaper, The Tufts Daily, past twelvemonth criticizing the university’s effect to pupil activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said successful March, without providing evidence, that investigations recovered that Ozturk engaged successful activities successful enactment of Hamas, a U.S.-designated violent group.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.