Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk must be moved to Vermont, judge rules

A judge on Thursday denied the government’s request to pause the transfer of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, who is fighting deportation after she co-wrote an essay about Israel and the war in Gaza, back to Vermont. 

U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions ruled that the federal government is now obligated to ensure that Öztürk, who is being held in Louisiana, is moved to Vermont by May 1. The Justice Department appealed Sessions’ previous order to transfer Öztürk to Vermont, where her habeas corpus petition challenging her detainment was filed. Federal officials had also asked Session to pause the order from taking effect while it was on appeal.

Brett Max Kaufman, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Öztürk, criticized the government’s attempts to pause her transfer.

“For four weeks, the government has been detaining Ms. Ozturk for writing an op-ed,” Kaufman said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “And now, it is doing everything within its power to avoid having to justify what it has done, including filing a hail-mary appeal hoping to stop the district court from deciding her claims.”

The Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

In his order, Sessions said any delay of Öztürk’s transfer could prolong “the very detention that is at the heart of this case.”

Last week, Sessions ordered the administration to transfer Öztürk back to Vermont while her habeas petition plays out in federal court. Her deportation case in immigration court in Louisiana would also proceed while she is detained in Vermont.

The government appealed the order days later to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has yet to weigh in. Soon after, Öztürk’s attorneys opposed the government’s request to pause Sessions’ previous order. 

“Only one party — Ms. Öztürk — would suffer any harm from a stay, and that harm is irreparable,” Öztürk’s attorneys wrote in court filings. “By contrast, the government suffers no harm at all by holding Ms. Öztürk in detention in Vermont instead of Louisiana and being compelled to justify her continued detention.”

Homeland security agents grabbed Öztürk, a doctoral student in the United States on a student visa, off a Massachusetts street in late March. DHS accused her of engaging “in activities in support of Hamas.”  

Last year, Öztürk co-wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper that called on Tufts to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest from companies with ties to Israel. Tufts has said the essay did not violate its policies. 

Öztürk was moved to three locations, including Vermont, before she ended up in Louisiana, despite an order from a district court that said she could not be moved out of Massachusetts without notice. 

“For nearly 24 hours, Ms. Öztürk’s attorney was unable to locate her,” the ACLU said in a news release.

Facilities in rural Louisiana have been the subject of human rights criticisms, and immigration advocates say the Trump administration has sent students to a jurisdiction that is more aligned with its immigration goals. 

“They’re being placed in facilities that have pretty horrendous conditions, a lot of difficulties with access to counsel and in what is really a more hostile legal jurisdiction to fight their case for the right to remain in the United States,” Mary Yanik, the director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Tulane Law School in New Orleans, has told NBC News. 

On Tuesday, a congressional delegation led by Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., visited ICE facilities in Louisiana. The members met with Öztürk and Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and green-card holder who was arrested and detained in early March. 

“From our communications with these individuals, they’re frightened, they’re concerned. They want to go home,” Carter told reporters after the visit. “They’re happy to see that members of Congress are here to listen, to take good notes, to go back to Washington to ensure that due process is granted, health care is provided and fairness is the rule of day.”