On Friday, a judge ordered the government to immediately release Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk on bail from a federal immigration detention center. The judge said Ozturk's challenge of her arrest raised serious claims of due process and First Amendment violations, and that her continued detention "potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of people in this country who are not citizens."
U.S. District Judge for the District of Vermont William K. Sessions III said the government's failure to produce any evidence against Ozturk besides an op-ed she helped write for the Tufts student newspaper suggested that she was detained for protected First Amendment speech. Citing the extraordinary circumstances of her case, the chilling effects of her continued detention, and Ozturk's medical testimony, Sessions found that Ozturk's detention could not stand and ordered her released on her own recognizance without restriction on travel.
The ruling is a loss for the Trump administration's campaign to deport student visa holders for speaking in favor of Palestine and participating in pro-Palestine protests. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed sweeping powers to revoke the visas of foreigners that the federal government deems harmful to its foreign policy interests and have them arrested without a warrant or criminal charges.
