Washington — Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral candidate at Tufts College, was launched from immigration custody Friday, hours after a decide ordered her to be freed on bail.
U.S. District Decide William Classes, who’s presiding over the case, stated on the conclusion of Friday’s bail listening to that Ozturk raised “very substantial” and “very significant” claims that her First Modification and due course of rights had been violated when she was taken into custody following the Trump administration’s revocation of her scholar visa in March.
“Her continued detention cannot stand,” he stated.
Ozturk was launched by the federal government later Friday afternoon, certainly one of her attorneys, Sonya Levitova, confirmed to CBS Information.
“The government sent masked, plainclothes agents to kidnap Rümeysa off the street and lock her up for writing an op-ed. She has been a political prisoner for six weeks. Now that she’s free and can resume her studies and rejoin her community at Tufts, we look forward to seeing the government in court to vindicate Rümeysa’s rights in full,” Levitova stated in an announcement.
Ozturk was held at an immigration facility in Basile, Louisiana, the place she was transferred after she was detained in Massachusetts. However the court docket stated she will be able to now return to her dwelling in Somerville, Massachusetts, with no journey restrictions. The bail listening to in her problem to her confinement got here after a federal appeals court docket dominated Wednesday that the Trump administration had till Might 14 to adjust to a district court docket’s order to switch Ozturk to immigration custody in Vermont.
Ozturk, who appeared remotely from Louisiana and testified earlier than the court docket, was seen hugging her lawyer after Classes delivered his resolution from the bench.
The Trump administration has stated that the underlying justification for taking Ozturk’s scholar visa away rested on an opinion piece she co-authored within the Tufts scholar newspaper final 12 months about Israel’s conflict with Hamas. However Classes stated Ozturk “simply and purely” was detained for “the expression she made or shared in the op-ed.”
“There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the op-ed. I mean, that literally is the case,” Classes stated. “There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent the consideration of the op-ed.”
He instructed the court docket that creates a “very significant, substantial claim that the op-ed — that is that the expression of one’s opinion as ordinarily protected by the First Amendment — formed the basis of this particular detention.”
“There is absolutely no evidence that she has engaged in violence or advocated violence,” Classes stated. “She has no criminal record. She has done nothing other than essentially attend her university and expand her contacts within the community in such a supportive way.”
Mike Rodman, a spokesperson for Tufts College, stated in an announcement that the varsity is “pleased that the court has approved Rumeysa’s request to be released on bail, and we look forward to welcoming her back to campus to resume her doctoral studies. As we have noted previously, Rumeysa is a student in good standing, and nothing in her co-authored op-ed of March 26, 2024, in The Tufts Daily student newspaper violated either the university’s gatherings, protests, and demonstrations policy or its Declaration on Freedom of Expression. We hope that she is able to rejoin our community as soon as possible.”
Along with listening to testimony from Ozturk, her attorneys additionally questioned her physician, her adviser within the doctoral program at Tufts and an official with a Burlington, Vermont, group that provided pretrial providers to Ozturk if she is launched. The federal government didn’t put ahead any witnesses to offer testimony.
Through the proceedings, and whereas her physician was testifying about Ozturk’s bronchial asthma prognosis, a lawyer showing alongside her in Louisiana stated Ozturk was affected by an bronchial asthma assault, and she or he was briefly excused for 10 minutes.
One among Ozturk’s attorneys stated that she would face “significant health risks” if she remained in detention and urged Classes to right away grant her bail.
Permitting her to stay in custody reveals that “you can be detained thousands of miles from your home for more than six weeks for writing a single news article,” her lawyer instructed the court docket.
Ozturk alleges that her detainment violates her First and Fifth Modification rights. She is amongst a number of hundred worldwide college students attending American universities who’ve had their scholar visas revoked after they had been accused of criticizing Israel or collaborating in pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.
Ozturk’s attorneys stated that an immigration decide denied bond for the Turkish nationwide throughout a listening to final month after they requested an immigration decide to launch her as her immigration case proceeds. Her attorneys stated the Division of Homeland Safety introduced one doc to assist their opposition to Ozturk’s bond request: a one-paragraph State Division memo revoking her scholar visa.
The immigration decide, Ozturk’s attorneys stated, denied bond primarily based on the “untenable conclusion” that she was “both a flight risk and a danger to the community.”
Ozturk was taken into custody by masked, plainclothes immigration authorities exterior her Somerville residence on March 25 after her scholar visa was revoked by the Trump administration. She was not knowledgeable in regards to the revocation earlier than she was detained, her attorneys stated.
Courtesy of the Ozturk household by way of Reuters
As justification for her arrest and detention, the Division of Homeland Safety and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated Ozturk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization,’” based on court docket filings.
Ozturk had co-authored an opinion piece that was revealed within the Tufts’ scholar newspaper final 12 months that criticized the varsity for its dismissal of a number of resolutions adopted by the undergraduate scholar senate as a “sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.” The op-ed didn’t point out Hamas.
Tufts president Sunil Kumar submitted a declaration defending Ozturk and supporting her movement relating to her launch, writing that the college “has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities at Tufts that warrant her arrest and detention.”
After Ozturk was taken into custody, she was transferred to New Hampshire after which Vermont, the place she was saved in a single day earlier than placing her on a aircraft to Louisiana. The 30-year-old scholar has been detained at an immigration facility in Basile since late March.
In a court docket submitting by Ozturk, she stated that she has suffered a number of critical bronchial asthma assaults in ICE detention and has acquired restricted medical consideration on the Louisiana detention middle. She stated that she is certainly one of 24 folks in a detention cell that has an indication stating the room has a capability for 14.
Throughout Friday’s bail listening to, Ozturk instructed the court docket that she has suffered 12 bronchial asthma assaults since she was detained, which have turn into “longer and harder to stop.” 4 of them occurred since Ozturk disclosed her historical past to the court docket in a declaration final week, she stated. There are “constant triggers” that may carry on an assault, together with the room circumstances on the facility in Louisiana, restricted entry to the outside and stress from her confinement, Ozturk stated.
“It is affecting me in a very negative way, alongside other women living here, not accessing enough medical care and medication,” she stated.
If she is launched whereas her case is adjudicated, Tufts will present Ozturk with housing, she stated. Ozturk can proceed working towards completion of her doctorate if she is let loose of detainment, she instructed the court docket.
Ozturk’s whereabouts within the hours after she was taken into custody kicked off a battle over the place her habeas petition needs to be filed and whether or not federal district courts even have the authority to contemplate the problem. Whereas initially filed in court docket in Massachusetts, a decide there transferred her case to Vermont, on condition that Ozturk was within the state on the time her attorneys filed her habeas petition.
The Massachusetts decide who was assigned Ozturk’s petition looking for launch had swiftly issued an order barring the federal government from transferring her out of the state. However by then, Ozturk was in Vermont and hours later was flown to Louisiana.
Referencing this preliminary order, Classes referred to as it an “extraordinary situation” wherein a federal decide ordered the federal government to not take Ozturk out of Massachusetts, after which didn’t inform the court docket that she was in a distinct location.
The Justice Division had argued that the case ought to proceed in Louisiana, as that’s the place Ozturk was confined. They’d sought, unsuccessfully, to have her problem to her detention tossed out.
Classes, who sits on the federal district court docket in Vermont, dominated final month that Ozturk needed to be transferred from Louisiana to ICE custody in Vermont. Separate from her bail listening to, the decide will weigh the deserves of Ozturk’s problem to her confinement on Might 22.
The Trump administration appealed that call and requested the U.S. Court docket of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to dam it. However the three-judge panel rejected the request and stated federal immigration authorities needed to switch Ozturk to Vermont, as Classes ordered them to do.
“Permitting Ozturk’s transfer will provide her ready access to legal and medical services, address concerns about the conditions of her confinement, and expedite resolution of this matter — all of which are required, as the court below noted, to proceed expeditiously,” Judges Barrington Parker, Susan Carney and Alison Nathan stated of their unanimous opinion. “At stake, too, is Ozturk’s ability to participate meaningfully in her habeas proceedings.”
