UPDATE (May 9, 2025, 6:35 p.m. ET): Rümeysa Öztürk was released from detention Friday evening. She declined to speak at length with the press, saying: “Thank you so much. I am a little bit tired, so I will take some time to rest.”
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately release Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk from custody, after finding scant evidence from the federal government to justify her detention.
At a Friday bail hearing, U.S. District Judge William Sessions III said the government had not produced any justification for Öztürk’s ongoing detention other than her op-ed in a student newspaper that criticized Tufts’ response to Israel’s war in Gaza.
The judge ordered the government to release Öztürk from immigration detention immediately. He also declined to impose travel restrictions, saying: “Frankly, I don’t find that she poses any risk of flight.”
Öztürk’s legal team celebrated Sessions’ ruling. “I am relieved and ecstatic that Rümeysa has been ordered released. Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late,” lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a statement. “She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine.”
Her supporters and civil rights advocates have likened her arrest and detention to an abduction.
Öztürk, a Turkish national on a student visa, was arrested in March by immigration agents in Massachusetts. The Trump administration said her visa had been revoked and accused her of having “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” pointing to the op-ed she co-wrote last year with other Tufts students.
Surveillance footage of her arrest shows a group of masked plainclothes agents approaching her on a street and then handcuffing her as she screamed before escorting her into an SUV. Her supporters and civil rights advocates have likened her arrest and detention to an an abduction. Öztürk was later found to have been transferred to a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement processing center in Louisiana, where she said she has suffered untreated asthma attacks and endured “unsanitary, unsafe, and inhumane” conditions. Sessions previously ruled that Öztürk should be transferred to Vermont, where she was held before being sent to Louisiana. Öztürk, who appeared remotely at the Friday hearing, had an asthma attack during the proceedings. She testified that her condition had worsened in detention. Sessions said the government had “no evidence” against Öztürk “absent the consideration of the op-ed,” according to legal reporter Adam Klasfeld. Öztürk has “very substantial claims of First Amendment and due process violations,” the judge said, adding that her detention “chills the speech of millions and millions” of noncitizens in the U.S.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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