A federal appeals court in New York heard arguments on Tuesday (May 6) in the case of Rumeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts University who has been held in a private immigrant detention facility in Louisiana for the past six weeks.
Last month, a federal district judge ordered the U.S. government to transport Öztürk to Vermont, one of the states where she was transferred after her initial arrest in Somerville, Massachusetts, and where she was located when attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition, challenging what they say is her wrongful detention. Rules around that type of suit require the person seeking release from federal custody to appear in court in the state they were physically located at the time of filing.
The Trump administration quickly appealed the order, claiming in court filings that the transfer “poses costs that the Executive Branch cannot recover.”
A three-judge panel in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on why it should allow or block Öztürk’s transfer to Vermont. Judges did not make a decision on Tuesday regarding the transfer. A bail hearing, which Öztürk is scheduled to attend in person in federal court in Vermont, is set for Friday (May 9). That court is supposed to hear arguments in the wrongful detention case on May 22.
Öztürk was a doctoral student at Tufts who had co-authored an op-ed in the student newspaper about the school’s investment in companies linked to Israel, in light of Israel’s war in Gaza, when immigration authorities revoked her visa and detained her. In court, her attorney, Esha Bhandari with the American Civil Liberties Union, said Öztürk is the real victim, not the Trump administration.
“Rumeysa Öztürk’s case is unprecedented and shocking,” Bhandari said in court. “Now … the government asks this court to extraordinarily intervene to block her transfer to [Vermont] as if it is the party suffering any irreparable harm.”
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign pointed to a section of U.S. immigration law that prohibits federal district judges from weighing in on U.S. Department of Homeland Security decisions to detain immigrants in deportation, or removal, proceedings.
“Because the detention here is detention pending removal, it is inextricably bound up with the decision to initiate removal proceedings,” Ensign told judges.
Judge Alison Nathan questioned Ensign on this reasoning, citing case law that indicates the federal district court in Vermont would only need to excuse itself from the wrongful detention case if Öztürk had already received a final deportation order, which she has not.
Bhandari told judges that the government’s decision to detain Öztürk and its choice to initiate deportation proceedings against her are two separate issues. In fact, Öztürk is attempting to challenge her detention in federal district court in Vermont, while her deportation case is going on in immigration court in Louisiana.
“Ms. Öztürk’s claim is that she has been detained in retaliation for writing an op-ed that was constitutionally protected speech in violation of the First Amendment,” Bhandari said in court.
Judge Susan Carney pushed back against that argument, saying it was difficult for her to separate the two cases.
“Regardless of whether the government’s motivation in both cases was the same, which is First Amendment retaliation, they are different claims,” Bhandari responded.
Attempting to have the wrongful detention case dismissed, Ensign also claimed attorneys for Öztürk failed to name her correct custodian when they filed suit. He said the custodian should have been the warden of the Vermont immigration detention facility where she was eventually taken.
Öztürk’s attorneys said they did not know her exact location when they filed the wrongful detention suit at 10 p.m. on March 25, after masked and plain-clothed federal enforcement agents seized her earlier that day in Somerville, Massachusetts as she walked to meet friends for a dinner to break their Ramadan fast. She was taken to New Hampshire and then to Vermont and, according to court filings, was flown to Louisiana within 12 hours of her arrest.
Bhandari said the attorneys didn’t know who to name as the custodian at the time “because of the government’s own decision not to provide that information.”
Öztürk remains detained at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, a privately run immigrant detention center in Basile, Louisiana, where in court filings she has said her health, particularly an asthma condition, is deteriorating.
The judges also heard arguments in a case involving the detention of Palestinian Columbia University student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, who was recently released from federal custody in Vermont.
Judge Barrington Parker, Jr. attempted to grapple with the issue of First Amendment rights in both cases.
“Does the government contest that the speech in both cases was protected speech?” Parker asked Ensign.
“Your honor, we haven’t — we have not taken a position on that,” Ensign responded.
In the past two months, the Trump administration has targeted several other international students and academics who have participated in pro-Palestinian activities at American universities, as part of a larger crackdown on immigration. Last month, the Louisiana Illuminator reported that the Trump administration had also revoked more than a dozen visas for Louisiana international students.
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