Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student working on her doctorate at Tufts University, was freed from immigration detention on May 9, 2025, after a federal judge ruled that holding her violated her First Amendment rights. Ozturk’s arrest on March 25, 2025, caused widespread anger among students, professors, and civil rights activists.
She was taken into custody on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, by immigration officers who then moved her to a detention center in Louisiana. The reason for her arrest was the cancellation of her student visa, which was directly tied to an opinion article she helped write for the Tufts Daily, according to Reuters and the NY Times.
