1 week ago
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A federal judge in Vermont ordered on Friday the immediate release of Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University doctoral student who had been abducted by ICE agents and detained in a Louisiana correctional facility since March 25.
“Her continued detention cannot stand. This is someone who probably doesn’t have a whole lot of other things going on other than reaching out to other members of the community in a caring and compassionate way,” said Judge William K. Sessions III, releasing Öztürk on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions.
Öztürk’s release follows a ruling by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which ordered the Trump administration to transfer her to a Vermont facility by May 14. Opting to appear remotely, Öztürk allowed Sessions to proceed with her bail hearing. Sessions told the court he wanted to be informed the moment she was released.
“She has done nothing other than essentially attend her university and expand her contacts within the community in such a supportive way,” he said.
Hundreds of people gather in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 26 to demand the release of Öztürk.According to the ACLU, Öztürk has not been accused of any crime. Regardless, she has been held for approximately 45 days after being taken from in front of her apartment by plainclothes ICE goons in Somerville, Massachusetts, in what witnesses said “looked like a kidnapping.”
“I am relieved and ecstatic that Rümeysa has been ordered released. She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine,” Mahsa Khanbabai of Khanbabai Immigration Law said.
That op-ed, which appeared in a Tufts student newspaper last year, appears to be the only evidence the government has to warrant her detention—a clear violation of her First Amendment rights, according to legal experts.
Öztürk’s release follows that of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia University student who was released on April 30 after being taken into custody while appearing at a Vermont immigration office for what was supposed to be the final interview in his process of becoming a U.S. citizen.
Similarly, Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student, was pulled by ICE agents from his home in New York City, taken to Louisiana in March, and detained on the flimsiest of evidence. Khalil secured a legal victory on Tuesday, when the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s appeal of an earlier court ruling requiring that his case be heard in New Jersey.
Öztürk, Mahdawi, and Khalil are among several unconstitutional arrests by the Department of Homeland Security as part of a wider effort to suppress student activism by labeling them as foreign threats.
The release of Öztürk and Mahdawi is a critical win against the Trump administration’s authoritarian efforts to silence free speech, though it hardly marks the end of this battle.
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