The immigration court blocked his deportation Graduate student at Tufts University, Turkey Immigration officials arrested her near her home in Massachusetts, her lawyers said in court documents filed Monday.
Romesa Ozturk The immigration court found on January 29 that the Department of Homeland Security had not proven that Ozturk should be removed from the United States, the lawyers said.
The immigration court also ended Ozturk’s deportation proceedings, the lawyers said in a letter to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which was reviewing her case.
The notice filed by her attorney said the department has the option of appealing the immigration court’s decision.
Ozturk is a doctoral student studying children’s relationship with social media. She was arrested last March While walking in the street When the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-written an editorial criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza.
The video showed masked agents She was handcuffed and placed in an unmarked car.
A petition for her release was first filed in federal court in Boston and then moved to Burlington, Vermont. It was Ozturk From an immigration detention center in Louisiana Since May and back to the Tufts University campus outside Boston.
A federal judge said Ozturk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment and due process rights, as well as her validity. The federal government appealed her release to the Second Circuit.
Ozturk’s lawyers told the Second Circuit that the government may try to detain their client again if it appeals the immigration court’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Ozturk said it was encouraging to know that some justice could prevail.
“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief because I know that despite the flaws in the judicial system, my case may give hope to those who have been wronged by the American government as well,” she said in a statement released by her lawyers.