MBABANE: A Judge in the United States (US) has blocked the deportation of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Tufts University student who was arrested last year as part of a crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists, Aljazeera reported, quoting her lawyers.
Ozturk’s lawyers detailed the decision in a letter filed at the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.
They said the Immigration Judge concluded on January 29 that the US Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden of proving she was removable and terminated the proceedings against her.
“Ozturk, a PhD student studying children’s relationship to social media, was arrested last March while walking down a street as the administration of US President Donald Trump began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. Video showed masked agents handcuffing her and putting her into an unmarked vehicle. The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts’ student newspaper a year earlier, criticising her university’s response to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza,” reads the Aljazeera report in part.
Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk at a news conference at Boston Logan International Airport after she was released on a judge's order after spending more than six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention centre, in Boston, Massachusetts, US, May 10, 2025 [Faith Ninvaggi via Aljazeera).