Overview
- Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, has been detained for six weeks following her March 25 arrest in Massachusetts for alleged pro-Palestinian advocacy.
- The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's order to transfer Ozturk from a Louisiana detention facility to Vermont by May 14 for habeas hearings.
- The Justice Department had argued that Ozturk's case should remain under the jurisdiction of an immigration court in Louisiana, but the appeals court disagreed.
- Ozturk's lawyers claim her detention violates constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, linking her arrest to an op-ed she co-authored criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza.
- The decision is part of broader legal battles involving the Trump administration's crackdown on international students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism.