BOSTON — A Tufts University doctoral student who was detained this week can’t be deported to Turkey without a court order, a federal judge in Massachusetts said on Friday.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken by masked immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on Tuesday.
Ozturk was quickly moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in remote Basile, Louisiana, before her attorneys could secure a judge’s order blocking the transfer.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper gave the government until Tuesday evening to respond to an updated complaint filed by Ozturk’s attorneys.
“To allow the Court’s resolution of its jurisdiction to decide the petition, Ozturk shall not be removed from the United States until further order of this court,” the judge wrote.
Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who have recently had visas revoked or been stopped from entering the U.S.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson has confirmed Ozturk’s detention and the termination of her visa, saying investigations found Oztruk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. The department did not provide evidence of that support.
Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in an attack that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and during which about 250 hostages were seized. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and destroyed much of the enclave.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in The Tufts Daily last year that criticized the university’s response to student demands that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.
Friends have said Ozturk was not otherwise closely involved in protests against Israel.
President Donald Trump ‘s administration has cited a seldom-invoked statute authorizing the secretary of state to revoke visas of noncitizens who could be considered a threat to foreign policy interests.