An immigration court blocked the deportation of a Turkish Tufts University graduate student who was detained by immigration officials near her Massachusetts home, her attorneys said in court documents filed Monday.
Rümeysa Öztürk’s attorneys said that Immigration Judge Roopal Patel found on Jan. 29 that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t proved that Öztürk should be removed from the U.S. The immigration court also terminated Öztürk’s removal proceedings, the attorneys said in a letter to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has been reviewing her case.
“Essentially the immigration judge found that the government didn’t prove its case,” said Öztürk’s immigration attorney Mahsa Khanbabai. “It didn’t prove that her visa was revoked properly, but basically it said that she’s still here in lawful student status. A court rules that she is here in lawfully student status and therefore she is not deportable.”
“We’re celebrating this as a huge win in affirming that justice will prevail when an impartial and fair court has the opportunity to review the facts,” Khanbabai said.
The department has the option to appeal the immigration court’s decision.
Öztürk’s attorneys say the decision underscores the importance of allowing federal courts to review challenges to immigration detention.
“Without federal court jurisdiction, the government could punitively and unlawfully detain any noncitizen for months based solely on their speech so long as it simultaneously began removal proceedings — even where, as here, an immigration judge ultimately agrees that there is no lawful basis for removal,” said Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. Rossman is one of the attorneys on her federal court cases, which is separate from the immigration case.
Öztürk is a PhD student studying children’s relationship to social media. She was arrested last March while walking down the street as the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza.
Video showed masked agents handcuffing her and putting her into an unmarked vehicle.
A petition to release her was first filed in federal court in Boston and then moved to Burlington, Vermont. Öztürk has been out of a Louisiana immigrant detention center since May and back on the Tufts campus outside Boston.
A federal judge said Öztürk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment and due process rights, as well as her health. The federal government appealed her release to the 2nd Circuit.
Öztürk’s attorneys told the 2nd Circuit that the government may try to detain their client again if it appeals the immigration court’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. GBH News has a pending request for comment for the Department of Homeland Security.
“This is more judicial activism at its core to keep a terrorist sympathizer in this country,” said an unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson on Tuesday afternoon. “We are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here. Sec. Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism — think again.” During court proceedings it was revealed that the State Department never found any connections to any terrorist groups or anti-Semitism from Öztürk.
“Visas provided to foreign students to live, study, and work, in the United States are a privilege, not a right — no matter what this or any other activist judicial ruling says,” the media statement continues.
Öztürk said it was heartening to know that some justice can prevail.
“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system’s flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government,” she said in a statement. “Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all.”
