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An immigration judge has denied bond to Rümeysa Öztürk, her lawyers said Thursday, the latest development in the case of the Tufts University student from Turkey whose arrest on a Massachusetts sidewalk was captured in a viral video.
Öztürk, 30, was on her way to meet friends to break the Ramadan fast on March 25 when she was surrounded and detained by plain-clothed immigration agents in Somerville, a Boston suburb. She was then taken to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
Her lawyers have asked a federal judge in Vermont to order her release as the immigration case plays out. They argue that Öztürk had her student visa revoked in retaliation for an op-ed she co-wrote for her student newspaper about the war in Gaza.
“Ms. Öztürk has committed no crime and DHS has provided zero evidence in their case against her,” Mahsa Khanbabai, one of Öztürk’s attorneys, said Thursday in a statement.
In court papers filed in Vermont district court late Wednesday, Öztürk’s lawyers said the immigration judge in Louisiana denied the request for bond after Department of Homeland Security attorneys argued that she was a flight risk.
The court papers say that the government attorneys presented one document — a one-paragraph State Department memo revoking her visa — to support their opposition to the bond.
The memo says that DHS and ICE determined that Öztürk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization,’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”
Khanbabai said the government’s treatment of Öztürk amounted to an attack on free speech.
“The court yesterday relied on a previously submitted State Department memo that points to nothing that Ms. Öztürk said or did — other than her 2024 school newspaper op-ed — to falsely claim she is a danger to her community,” she said. “This attack on free speech is despicable, but we won’t be deterred.”
The opinion essay that Öztürk co-wrote in the Tufts student newspaper criticized the university’s response to demands that it “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”
A State Department spokesperson said it does not comment on “ongoing or pending litigation.”
A senior DHS official said that “being granted a visa to live and study in the United States is a privilege not a right.”
“The State Department makes specific determinations about visa revocations when an individual poses a threat to national security,” the official added.
A DHS spokesperson previously said in a statement to NBC News that investigations found Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
The spokesperson added: “Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”
Öztürk, who is in a doctoral program for child study and human development, is one of several foreign students and academics the Trump administration has targeted for deportation after they expressed pro-Palestinian views.
In the Thursday court filings, Öztürk’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III in Vermont to order that she be released or, “at a minimum,” returned to the district of Vermont by Friday.
Öztürk’s attorneys also asked the judge to hold a hearing next week. The judge has yet to decide whether the district of Vermont has jurisdiction over her petition for release pending the determination in her deportation proceedings.
Earlier this week, Öztürk’s lawyers argued that the federal case should be in Vermont because that is where she was being held when their petition was filed. Government lawyers say that it should be transferred to Louisiana, where she is currently being detained.
Julia Jester contributed.
