Le Mesa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian visa holders, has been ordered to be released from immigration custody.
On Friday, Vermont-based US District Judge William Sessions ruled that Ozteruk’s “detention cannot bear.”
“The court held that she poses no risk to the community or presents no risk of flight. The court ordered the government to release Ms. Ozturk from custody immediately,” Sessions said.
Lawyers for Ozturk, a Turkish citizen in the US on student visas, had alleged that her Trump administration’s efforts to bind and deport her constitutional rights, including free speech and legitimate procedures, had violated her constitutional rights.
The session appears to be adjacent to legal team discussions, saying Ozteruk’s “detention could continue and could make the speeches of millions of individuals in this country that are not citizens.”
Oztulk’s lawyer Mahsa Kambabai said in a statement that he was “reassured and eliminated” about the judge’s order, but that was too late.
“When was it a crime to speak out against oppression? When was opposition to genocide to be a must-have for jail?” she said.
Ozturk, 30, appeared at the Vermont hearing via video from a Louisiana detention center, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hijab.
During her testimony, she remarked that she was surrounded and detained by mediocre immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents near a student home in Summerville, Massachusetts.
She said she suffered a series of asthma attacks in a total of 12 as she had been transferred to Louisiana. She said she first came at the Atlanta airport, and she didn’t have all the medicines she needed.
“I was scared and I was crying,” she said.
The doctoral student told the judge about her research relating to Wauzon’s children’s community involvement. She was one of dozens of student visa holders and permanent residents targeted by the Trump administration for Palestinian advocacy.
The administration relies on vague provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, allowing the Secretary of State to deport anyone deemed “to have a negative impact on the interests of our foreign policy.”
Authorities have broadly portrayed pro-Palestinian protests and other forms of advocacy as “anti-Semitism,” despite providing little evidence in individual cases.
Still, Ozturk’s detention is noteworthy given her relatively low public profile, and her only public advocacy comes in the form of an article she co-written with three other students in the campus newspaper. The film acknowledged the “Palestine genocide” on its link to Israel and criticised the university’s response to a student-led call to administrators to “disclose investments, disclose investments from companies, and sell from companies.”
Speaking at Friday’s hearing, Oztzurk said he would provide her home if Tufts is released, and her friends and lawyers will take her to a future court hearing.
She added that she remains committed to completing her PhD degree.
Pollution on pro-Palestinian defense
The judge’s order on Friday comes more than a week after Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian protest leader at Columbia University, was released from immigration detention by another federal judge in Vermont.
On Thursday, Madawi, who is still facing an ongoing deportation case, announced the creation of the Vermont Immigration Law Defense Fund to support immigrants facing an international hearing.
Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Kristen Salumi, Mahdawi said he was detained by immigration officers when he attended a citizenship hearing in Vermont in April.
He said ice agents tried to transfer him to more conservative jurisdiction in Louisiana.
Mahadawi added that the move is intended to isolate him from his community and legal support.
“They had plane tickets. They had commercial flights printed in my name, and I was lucky enough to miss a flight in nine minutes,” Madawi said.
That short window, he explained, gave his lawyer time to intervene. They received a temporary restraining order that would prevent Mahdawi from being moved from the state.
Mahdawi believes that staying in Vermont paved the way for his release.
“I mean, if the plan goes well when they set it up, we wouldn’t have done this interview,” he said.
Before Ozturk held a hearing on Friday, the judge’s session had ordered schools to transfer to Vermont by May 14th. That’s because she was in custody when her lawyer filed her first petition for her release.
However, the session decided to continue her bail hearing, even before Ozturk physically moved. The Trump administration has previously appealed for an earlier deadline for his move to Vermont, set on May 1.
Ozturk has not been charged with a crime. The Trump administration has provided mostly justification for the decision to cancel Ozturk’s student visa, referring only to the articles she co-authored, claiming it is “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
The administration has widely argued that visa holders are not given the same constitutional rights protections as U.S. citizens. This could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
White House press chief Karoline Leavitt temporarily squeezed Friday’s decision during her daily news briefing.
“We have made it very clear that lower-level judges should not direct US foreign policy, and we absolutely believe that the President and the Department of Homeland Security are within the legal rights of deporting illegal immigrants,” she said.
“To come to this country on a visa is not a right, it’s a privilege, not a right,” she added.