A federal judge on May 9 ordered the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, from immigration detention, more than six weeks after her visa was revoked and she was taken into custody in Massachusetts.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions granted bail during a hearing in Burlington, Vermont, allowing Ozturk to be released from the Louisiana detention facility where she has been held since late March.
Her case is among the most high-profile involving a noncitizen student detained amid the Trump administration’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism and remove individuals linked to campus activism over the war in Gaza, which was triggered by terrorist group Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ozturk was arrested on March 25 by masked plainclothes officers near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts. Security camera footage captured the arrest. She was initially taken to facilities in Massachusetts and Vermont before being flown to an ICE facility in Basile, Louisiana.
Rather than dismissing the case, a judge in Massachusetts transferred it to Vermont, and Sessions later ordered that she be made available for proceedings. In court Friday, he said he considered the “significant constitutional concerns” raised by her attorneys.
Ozturk appeared remotely at the hearing and told the judge she had suffered multiple asthma attacks while in custody, including one during the hearing itself.
“The duration and frequency have increased because of both the constant triggers surrounding me and also the stressful environment that I am living in right now,” she said, noting she had experienced about a dozen attacks since being detained, more than in the previous two years.
An emergency order issued by a federal judge in Massachusetts late on March 25 had barred her transfer without 48 hours’ notice, but her relocation had already begun. A government attorney later testified it was unclear if the order had reached the appropriate officials in time.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a press briefing that Ozturk’s visa was revoked because she was a part of “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”
“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” Rubio said.
A Homeland Security spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times, “Visas provided to foreign students to live and study in the United States are a privilege, not a right. The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”
The Department of State did not respond to a request for comment before publication.
