A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release on bail a Turkish university student after she was detained in March and swiftly moved to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
Rumeysa Ozturk is currently held in a detention facility in Louisiana. She has been in custody for more than six weeks, and in her testimony today, she described worsening asthma attacks after being exposed to triggers in a cramped environment.
Earlier this week, a three-judge panel with the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that the federal government has one week to facilitate Ozturk’s transfer from the Louisiana facility to Vermont.
Ozturk was informed that her student visa had been revoked. Her arrest followed her role as one of four students who authored an op-ed last year criticizing Tufts University’s response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The article largely supported the people in Gaza, and some perceived it as anti-Semitic rhetoric in support of Hamas, which the U.S. has labeled a foreign terrorist organization.
