A federal judge has ordered Rümeysa Öztürk to be transferred to Vermont as she seeks to challenge what her lawyers call her "unconstitutional detention" in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. Öztürk is a Turkish national and a Tufts University Ph.D. student whose abduction off the streets by plainclothes U.S. agents was caught on camera, one of the most controversial examples of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian international students. She was targeted after co-authoring an opinion piece for the Tufts student newspaper critical of the school's response to Gaza protests. Last week, an immigration judge denied bond for Öztürk, declaring her to be a potential "danger to the community." Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports the State Department found no evidence linking Rümeysa Öztürk to antisemitic activities or public statements in support of terrorism, as the administration has claimed.
For more, we speak with Mudassar Toppa, part of Öztürk's legal team and a staff attorney at CLEAR, a legal nonprofit and clinic at CUNY School of Law. "In this case, the government was clear it was intending to abduct Ms. Öztürk. They didn't want her to know that her visa was revoked, and four days later, they did exactly what they planned and abducted her in broad daylight," says Toppa.
|
