By Canadian Press

Judge releases on bail the Turkish Tufts University student who was detained by ICE

May 9, 2025 | 10:38 AM

A federal judge in Vermont on Friday released on bail a Turkish Tufts University student detained in a Louisiana immigration center more than six weeks after she was arrested while walking along a street in a Boston suburb.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington released Rumeysa Ozturk pending a final decision on her claim that she’s been illegally detained.

Ozturk, detailing her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate degree focusing on children and social media, appeared at a bail hearing remotely from the Louisiana center.

Lawyers for Ozturk, 30, said her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

Ozturk was released Friday on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to consider any specific conditions by ICE.

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He said he didn’t think electronic monitoring would be in order, and that she would also check in with a staffer of the Burlington Community Justice Center for supervisory checks.

The U.S. Justice Department said an immigration court in Louisiana, which is conducting separate removal proceedings regarding Ozturk, has jurisdiction over her case.

Sessions ordered Ozturk’s transfer to Vermont, where she was last confined before she was taken to Louisiana. The government requested a delay, but a federal appeals court upheld his decision Wednesday, ordering Ozturk to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont no later than May 14.

Sessions decided not to wait for the transfer, going ahead with the bail hearing.

Ozturk waived her right to appear at the hearing in person, agreeing to participate remotely.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

A Tufts University student from Turkey told a federal judge Friday that she has had a dozen asthma attacks in the six weeks since she was arrested while walking along a street in a Boston suburb.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, participated in her bail hearing in Vermont by video from an immigration detention center in Louisiana. She said the first of 12 asthma attacks came on at the Atlanta airport while she was waiting to be taken to Louisiana. The attack was severe, and she did not have all her medications.

“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.

Her lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. They have called for her release.

The U.S. Justice Department said an immigration court in Louisiana, which is conducting separate removal proceedings regarding Ozturk, has jurisdiction over her case.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions ordered Ozturk’s transfer to Vermont, where she was last confined before she was taken to Louisiana. The government requested a delay, but a federal appeals court upheld his decision Wednesday, ordering Ozturk to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont no later than May 14.

Sessions decided not to wait for the transfer, going ahead with the bail hearing.

Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts on March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said.

Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Ozturk said Friday that if she is released, Tufts would offer her housing and her lawyers and friends would drive her to future court hearings.

“I will follow all the rules,” she said.

A State Department memo said Ozturk’s visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions ”‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

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Associated Press writer Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

Kathy Mccormack, The Associated Press