President Donald Trump’s administration continues to face setbacks in attempts to deport pro-Palestinian student protesters as courts investigate whether student rights are being violated.
On Wednesday, separate courts issued orders related to two of the most popular cases: Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.
In New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit moved Oztalk, a 30-year-old Turkish student at Tufts University, to Vermont until May 14th.
The ruling delayed the transfer of Louisiana, which has been detained at immigration detention centers since late March, and showed the Trump administration’s refusal to appeal to maintain Oztalc.
Esha Bandari, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, who represents Ozturk, said:
Separately, in Newark, New Jersey, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide details on the rationale for describing Khalil, the leader of the Columbia University student protest, as a threat to US foreign policy.
Inside the Ozturk case
The latest ruling in Oztzurku’s case highlighted practices that are common under the Trump administration. Many foreign students involved in the Palestinian protests have been moved to detention centres far from their homes.
Ozturk’s ordeal began on March 25th, when six plain police officers arrested her outside her home in the Boston, Massachusetts suburbs, where they attended school.
Supporters believe that Ozturk, a doctoral student at Turkier and a Fulbright scholar, has co-written an opinion piece in the student newspaper and targeted Tufts University to recognize Israeli war with Gaza as a genocide.
The United States is a longtime ally of Israel and supports military operations in Gaza. The Trump administration has accused Ozturk of “engaging in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that enjoys the murder of Americans,” but has provided no evidence.
After she was detained outside her home, Oztalk reportedly bubbled across the state border within 24 hours, first in Vermont, and then Louisiana, according to her lawyers.
Critics describe these rapid transfers as a means of destroying legitimate processes, separating foreign students from legal resources that can portray them from family, friends and legal resources.
In Ozturk’s case, the confusion led the lawyer to file a petition for release in Massachusetts, as he didn’t know where she was when he filed the documents.
On April 18, the lower court held that Oztalc must return to Vermont by May 1.
“No one should be arrested and locked up for political views. Every day, it’s a long day that Rumeysa Ozturk is in custody,” her lawyer, Bhandari, said in a statement.
However, the Trump administration appealed and called for an emergency stay for Ozturk’s move to Vermont.
However, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the request (PDF). The government said it failed to demonstrate the “irreparable harm” caused by the relocation of Ozteruk.
“It is hardly difficult to conclude in her favor that “the balance of difficulties is apparent” in the face of such a dispute between the government’s non-specific financial and administrative concerns, and on the other hand, the risk of substantial constitutional harm to Ozturk,” the court wrote.
Ozturk is expected to be moved to Vermont, where she hears a petition for habeas, but the Trump administration plans to continue her Louisiana deportation lawsuit.
However, the appeals court explained that this should not be a challenge for the Trump administration given that Ozturk could appear through videoconference for those hearings.
“The government argues that Ozturk will face difficulties in appearing due to immigration lawsuits in Louisiana,” the court wrote. “However, the government has not objected that it is legally and practically possible for Ozturk to attend the removal process remotely.”
The Trump administration has the option to sue a decision before the Supreme Court.
In the case of Halil
Similarly, Halil is facing Louisiana deportation proceedings, but his habeas petition is being asked in New Jersey, near his home in New York City.
On March 8th, he became the first famous case of a student protester arrested for deportation. The immigration and customs enforcement agents have arrived at the Student Residential Building at Columbia University. There, his wife, a US citizen, was handcuffed and fled.
Halil himself was a permanent resident of the United States who recently graduated from Colombia’s International Public Relations School. He is of Palestinian descent.
On Tuesday, New Jersey’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals declined a bid to move the Trump administration’s Habeassas petition to Louisiana.
And on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Fabiartz ordered the Trump administration to provide a specific assessment of the risk of Khalil posing for being in the United States.
Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 to justify Halil’s detention and deportation. The rarely used provisions of the law allow state secretaries to eliminate non-citizens who could cause “potentially serious and unfavorable foreign policy implications.”
But Rubio has so far been vague about what those outcomes would be in the case of Halil. Student protest leaders are charged with no crime.
Judge Falbiartz also requested that the Trump team be provided with a catalog of all cases in which US officials have adopted the law. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the judge’s order as well.