Federal court rules Rümeysa Öztürk must be transferred to detention in Vermont

A federal appeals court in New York Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to transfer Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student, from Louisiana to Vermont to continue her immigration detention in that state while a judge there decides whether to release her on bail.

The Trump administration has one week to comply with the transfer, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

“The District of Vermont is likely the proper venue to adjudicate Öztürk’s habeas petition because, at the time she filed, she was physically in Vermont,” the panel wrote in its ruling.

Öztürk has been detained at a federal facility in Louisiana after being arrested on the street in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 25 by six federal plainclothes immigration agents. The Department of Homeland Security later accused her of engaging “in activities in support of Hamas.”

Last year she wrote an opinion essay in a university paper criticizing the school for its handling of a handful of resolutions passed by the student senate related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, including one calling on the university’s president to acknowledge and condemn “the Ongoing Genocide in Gaza.”

Her attorneys say she’s being held in violation of her free speech and due process rights and that the government has not shown any evidence she supports terrorism. She has not been charged with any crime.

“No one should be arrested and locked up for their political views,” said Esha Bhandari with the ACLU, which is representing her in federal court. “We’re grateful the court refused the government’s attempt to keep her isolated from her community and her legal counsel as she pursues her case for release.”

In a statement to NPR, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said having a visa to live and study in the U.S. “is a privilege not a right.”

“Today’s ruling does not prevent the continued detention of Ms. Ozturk, and we will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country,” McLaughlin said.

In court documents, the Trump administration has claimed that ICE sent Öztürk and other students to Louisiana because there was not enough detention space in immigration facilities where they were arrested.

But a federal judge in Massachusetts found earlier last month that there were detention beds available in Maine, a state closer to Vermont than Louisiana.

Wednesday’s ruling by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is a win for Öztürk. Legal experts have said that fighting deportation is more challenging in Louisiana than in Vermont. Any appeal from the southern state would be considered by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the nation.

Öztürk’s attorneys say she suffers from asthma attacks that have worsened in detention.

She is one of several international students arrested by the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on foreign students who express what the administration claims is support for terrorism and create a hostile environment for Jewish students.

A federal judge in Vermont has scheduled a bail hearing for Öztürk for Friday.