An immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration's attempt to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was kidnapped and then arrested last year amid a clampdown on pro-Palestine campus activism, her lawyers have said.
Attorneys for the Turkish student detailed the decision in a filing submitted on Monday to the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which has been reviewing an earlier ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.
According to the filing, an immigration judge ruled on January 29 that the US Department of Homeland Security had failed to meet its burden of proving Ozturk was removable and terminated the proceedings against her.
The decision was issued by Immigration Judge Roopal Patel in Boston, her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union said.
The ruling has ended, for now, proceedings that began with Ozturk's arrest by immigration authorities in March on a street in Massachusetts, after the US Department of State revoked her student visa.
Authorities said the sole basis for revoking the visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper a year earlier, criticising the university's response to Israel's genocide in Gaza.
"Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system's flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the US government," Ozturk said in a statement.
The immigration judge's decision has not been made public, and the administration could still challenge it before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which falls under the US Department of Justice.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to a request for comment.
Ozturk, a child development researcher and former Fulbright scholar, was held for 45 days in a detention facility in Louisiana.
Her arrest in the Boston suburb of Somerville was captured in a widely shared video that drew sharp criticism from civil rights groups.
She was released after a federal judge in Vermont ordered her immediate release, finding that she had raised a substantial claim that her detention amounted to unlawful retaliation in violation of her free speech rights.
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Source: TRT