An immigration judge has rejected efforts by the Trump administration to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumisa Ozturk, who was arrested last year in connection with targeting pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers said Monday.
Lawyers for the Turkish student appealed the immigration judge’s decision to the New York-based Second US Circuit Court of Appeals, which in May reviewed the ruling that led to her release from immigration custody.
An immigration judge on January 29 concluded that the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had not met its burden of proving she was deportable and ended the case against her, her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union wrote.
Immigration Judge Rupal Patel in Boston issued the decision, said her immigration lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai.
A process that began when immigration officials arrested Ozturk on a street in Massachusetts in March after DHS revoked her student visa.
The only basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-wrote in the Tufts student newspaper a year ago, criticizing her school’s response to the Israeli war. Gaza.
“Today, despite the flaws of the justice system, I am relieved to know that my case also has hope for those who have been wronged by the US government,” Ozturk said in a statement.
The immigration judge’s decision itself is not public, and the administration can challenge it before the Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the US Department of Justice.
DHS, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to a request for comment.
The arrest of Ozturk, a child development researcher in the Boston suburb of Somerville, was captured on viral video, shocking many and drawing criticism from civil rights groups.
The former Fulbright scholar was held for 45 days in a detention center in Louisiana, briefly by a federal judge in Vermont, who ordered her immediate release after raising a substantial claim that her detention violated her free speech rights and constituted illegal retaliation.
