U.S. District Judge Denise Casper for the district of Massachusetts ordered Friday evening that Tufts doctoral student, Rümeysa Öztürk, not be removed from the country unless otherwise ordered by the court. Respondents including Patricia Hyde, acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Boston field office, have until Tuesday to address the amended petition and civil complaint.
The order was made in response to an amended petition for Öztürk’s release filed by her legal counsel — now including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility clinic and her attorney Mahsa Khanbabai — on Friday morning.
“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the Petition, Öztürk shall not be removed from the United States until further Order of this Court,” Casper wrote in the order.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed on Thursday that Öztürk’s valid F-1 visa has been revoked. Her detention still seems to be based solely on an op-ed she co-authored in the Daily last year, according to the amended petition. The op-ed urged the university to adopt Tufts Community Union Senate resolutions to formally recognize genocide in Gaza and divest from Israeli corporations.
The amended petition argues for her release, stating that her detention is in violation of her constitutional rights to free speech and due process by the First and Fifth amendments. The initial Tuesday court order stated that Öztürk should not be moved outside Massachusetts without proper notice after her attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus.
Öztürk’s attorney was told she was moved to Louisiana on Wednesday, where she is currently detained in the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, according to the ICE detainee locator system.
She was relocated without notification to the court, her counsel or Department of Justice counsel, according to an ACLU press release. Her counsel also recorded that she was unable to access her medication and suffered an asthma attack while being transported to Louisiana.
“Rümeysa’s arrest and detention are not a necessary or usual consequence of the revocation of a visa. But like the revocation of her visa, her arrest and detention are designed to silence her, punish her for her speech, and ensure that other students will be chilled from expressing pro-Palestinian viewpoints. Her continued detention is therefore unlawful,” the petition reads.
Öztürk’s legal counsel was not informed of her location until nearly 24 hours after she was detained, according to the amended petition, and her attorney and family were unable to contact her for more than 20 hours.
“On information and belief, the movement of Petitioner to other states is consistent with, and part of, ICE’s pattern and practice of moving people detained for their speech to distant locations incommunicado and in secret to frustrate the ability of counsel to file habeas petitions on their behalf,” the petition reads.
Öztürk’s initial hearing is scheduled for April 7 at 8:30 a.m.
