The Turkish student who was detained by ICE in March for allegedly supporting Hamas will not be transferred to Vermont just yet, according to a court decision this week.
For weeks, Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, has been locked up at a Louisiana detention center run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after her student visa was revoked with no warning.
Ozturk, 30, filed a habeas corpus petition challenging her detainment in Vermont, which is why on April 25, US District Judge William K. Sessions ordered ICE to transfer her to the state ‘no later than May 1, 2025.’
The Department of Justice appealed, and on Monday an appeals court sided with the government, granting them a stay on Sessions’ ruling until a three-judge motions panel can decide whether transferring Ozturk to Vermont is warranted.
The Second Circuit Appeals Court, which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont, described this order as ‘administrative’ and stressed that this did not represent its opinion on the merits of the case.
‘The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the merits of the emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,’ according to the court.
The three-judge panel will sit and render a decision on Tuesday, May 6.
Until then, Ozturk will have to remain in the Basile detention center, which has been criticized for its allegedly poor conditions and possible abuse toward female inmates.
Until then, Ozturk will have to remain in the Basile detention center, which has been criticized for its allegedly poor conditions and possible abuse toward female inmates.
Ozturk has been in ICE custody since March 25, when she was swarmed by plain-clothes federal agents on the street near her off-campus home.
When she was detained, Ozturk had been on her to meet her friends for iftar, a meal to break her Ramadan fast.
‘I felt very scared and concerned as the men surrounded me and grabbed my phone from me,’ Ozurk said in a statement, according to CBS.
She was then accused of ‘engaging in activities in support of Hamas,’ the militant Palestinian group that runs the Gaza strip and attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
More than 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed in a disturbingly brutal surprise assault. Hamas, recognized by the US government as a terrorist group, has been at war with Israel ever since.
Many college students in the US have been critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, which led to the widespread protests last year on campuses all throughout the country.
Over 50,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign throughout Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Ozturk was among those who were vehemently against Israel’s war and has said she believes she was targeted by the State Department for her speech. Likewise, her lawyers argue her First Amendment rights were violated.
She co-authored an op-ed last March on the war in The Tufts Daily, the college’s student newspaper.
The piece criticized the university’s response to its community union Senate passing resolutions demanding that Tufts ‘acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,’ disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
It said: ‘These resolutions were the product of meaningful debate by the Senate and represent a sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.’
In a statement at the time of her arrest, ICE explained that its investigation ‘found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.’
‘A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.’
Shortly after her arrest, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said her visa had been taken away.
Rubio has maintained that Ozturk and the other student activists that engaged in anti-Israel protests were detained because they lied on their visa applications and did not mention their alleged support for Hamas.
‘If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,’ he said.
However, it came out in mid-April that the State Department found no evidence of Ozturk being linked to Hamas or antisemitism.
That was according to a leaked internal memo described to The Washington Post. The memo reportedly asserted that Rubio did not have the authority to revoke Ozturk’s visa.
Ozturk alleged once she was put in the Louisiana facility, she was locked up inside for her first week and had limited access to food and supplies for two weeks.
‘When they do the inmate count we are threatened to not leave our beds or we will lose privileges, which means that we are often stuck waiting in our beds for hours,’ she said.