A Tufts University student from Türkiye, who was arrested last week in Massachusetts by U.S. immigration officials after advocating for Palestinians amid Israel’s war in Gaza, challenged her arrest and the rapid transfer out of Massachusetts as being unlawful, according to a report Thursday.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a 30-year-old Fulbright scholar and third-year doctoral student at Tufts University, was arrested by masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 25 as she left her home in Somerville to attend an iftar, or fast-breaking dinner, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Within hours, she was flown to a detention center in Louisiana.
During Thursday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper pressed government lawyers on whether the rapid transfer across multiple states was routine or an attempt to hinder legal efforts to challenge her detention, according to a report by The Boston Globe.
“The question, counsel, is if recent is regular,” Casper told Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter, who defended the transfer as standard practice.
Prosecutors argued that Öztürk’s case should be heard in Louisiana, where she is being held, but her lawyers insisted the jurisdiction should remain in Massachusetts or Vermont, where she was when they filed a petition for her release.
Özturk’s attorneys and supporters believe she was targeted for co-authoring an op-ed in The Tufts Daily criticizing the university’s response to the pro-Palestinian movement.
“Efforts to target me because of my op-ed in the Tufts Daily calling for the equal dignity and humanity of all people will not deter me from my commitment to advocate for the rights of youth and children,” she said.
Soon after Öztürk’s arrest on March 25, one of her lawyers sued and secured a court order requiring her to not be removed from Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice.
Tufts President Sunil Kumar defended Özturk, saying: “The university has no information to support the allegations that she was engaged in activities that warrant her arrest and detention.”
Outside the courthouse, protesters chanted “Free Rümeysa now.”
The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funding to universities over pro-Palestinian protests that it describes as anti-Semitic, sympathetic to Hamas and a foreign policy threat.