Immigration judge denies bond for Tufts graduate student detained in Louisiana, lawyers say
An immigration judge has denied bond for Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Tufts University graduate student from Turkey, who remains in federal custody in Louisiana after her visa was revoked, according to her legal team.
Ozturk was detained by immigration authorities outside her Somerville, Massachusetts, apartment on March 25, shortly after returning from an iftar dinner.
Following her arrest, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ozturk’s student visa was “terminated” due to her alleged “activities in support of” the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which Washington has designated as a “terrorist organization.”
The 30-year-old student and Fulbright Scholar had penned an op-ed article in the student newspaper The Tufts Daily in March 2024, criticizing Tufts’ “wholly inadequate” response of the anti-Israel protests, urging the university to divest from Israel, a key demand of the movement.
After her arrest, Ozturk was initially held in New Hampshire and Vermont before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Basile, Louisiana.
Her attorneys argue the detention violates her First and Fifth Amendment rights and are calling for her release on bail or transfer to a facility in Vermont.
In a statement Thursday, her lawyer Marty Rosenbluth described the situation as "a complete violation of due process and the rule of law."
The bond request was formally denied on Wednesday, the same day Ozturk appeared in immigration court, her attorneys said.
According to them, the Department of Homeland Security submitted a single document in opposition to her release: a brief State Department memo outlining the basis for her visa revocation.
The memo claims Ozturk was associated with activities that "may undermine US foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students" and cites her role in co-authoring an op-ed.
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