Tufts student grabbed off street by immigration officers scores legal win, has case moved to Vermont

A federal judge ordered the detained Tufts University student’s petition for her release to be transferred from Massachusetts to Vermont.

U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper for Massachusetts denied the government’s motion to dismiss the petition and its alternative request to transfer it to the Western District of Louisiana, where the student, Rumeysa Öztürk, is currently detained.

The judge said Öztürk’s petition “raises serious issues as to the conduct of her arrest and detention as alleged,” adding that the case will be transferred to the District of Vermont, where Öztürk was confined overnight at the time that the petition was filed.

Lawyers for Öztürk did not immediately return requests for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The judge said her order blocking Öztürk from being deported remains in effect unless and until the transferee court orders otherwise.

Öztürk, a doctoral student from Turkey, was arrested by immigration authorities on March 25 in Somerville, Massachusetts. Video of her arrest shows Department of Homeland Security officers in plainclothes surrounding her, grabbing her at her wrists and whisking her away into a nearby SUV as she screamed.

Authorities then moved Öztürk to Louisiana, where several other foreign university students arrested have been taken to in recent weeks.