Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was released from a Louisiana immigrant detention center, on Friday, more than six weeks after she was arrested walking on the street of a Boston suburb.
U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Burlington ordered the release of Öztürk pending a final decision on her claim that she's been illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year that criticized the school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.
A photo provided by her legal team showed her outside, smiling with her attorneys in Louisiana, where the immigration proceedings will continue.
"Despite an 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rümeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction," attorney Mahsa Khanbabai said.
Even before her release, Öztürk's supporters cheered the decision, punctuating an earlier news conference held by her attorneys with chants of "She is free!"
"What we heard from the court today is what we have been saying for weeks, and what courts have continued to repeat up and down through the litigation of this case thus far," Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, told reporters. "There's absolutely no evidence that justifies detaining Öztürk for a single day, let alone the six and a half weeks that she has been detained, because she wrote a single op-ed in her student newspaper exercising her First Amendment right to express an opinion."
Appearing by video for her bail hearing, Öztürk, 30, detailed her growing asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate degree focusing on children and social media while appearing remotely at her bail hearing from the Louisiana center. She and her lawyer hugged after hearing the judge's decision.
"Completing my Ph.D. is very important to me," she testified. She had been on track to finish her work in December when she was arrested.
Öztürk was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions, Sessions said. He said she is not a danger to the community or a flight risk, but that he might amend his release order to consider any specific conditions by ICE in consultation with her lawyers.
Sessions said the government had offered no evidence about why Öztürk was arrested other than the op-ed.
"This is a woman who is just totally committed to her academic career," Sessions said. "This is someone who probably doesn't have a whole lot of other things going on other than reaching out to other members of the community in a caring and compassionate way."
A message seeking comment was emailed Friday afternoon to the U.S. Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review.
Sessions told Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher he wants to know immediately when she is released.
Sessions said Öztürk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment and due process rights, as well as her health. She testified Friday that she has had 12 asthma attacks since her detention, starting with a severe one at the Atlanta airport.
"I was afraid, and I was crying," she said.
Immigration officials surrounded Öztürk in Massachusetts on March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said.
Öztürk's lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.
Öztürk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university's response to student activists demanding that Tufts "acknowledge the Palestinian genocide," disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Öztürk said Friday that if she is released, Tufts would offer her housing and her lawyers and friends would drive her to future court hearings. She is expected to return to New England on Saturday at the earliest.
"I will follow all the rules," she said.
A State Department memo said Öztürk's visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions "'may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization' including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus."
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
"When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?" Khanbabai asked. "I am thankful that the courts have been ruling in favor of detained political prisoners, like Rümeysa."
Turkish Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç welcomed Öztürk’s release as a “positive development that relieves the public conscience.”
"The fact that our sister Rümeysa will regain her freedom is extremely important in terms of fundamental human rights and freedom of expression," said Tunç.
He highlighted how the ordeal has demonstrated the unacceptability of prosecuting someone for their faith and support for Palestine.
"Practices incompatible with democratic values, discrimination, marginalization, Islamophobia and double standards such as the injustice suffered by our sister Rümeysa should never be tolerated," he said.
Tunç added that the Justice Ministry actively supported Rümeysa diplomatically and legally from the start of the process with staff personally following the hearings.
