Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk ordered released from ICE detention

May 9, 2025
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Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student detained as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine visa holders, has been ordered to be released from immigration custody.

On Friday, Vermont-based US District Judge William Sessions ruled that Ozturk’s “detention cannot stand”.

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Trump’s campaign to turn dissent into a deportable offence harms democracy

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Detained Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi says he’s ‘in good hands’

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The great collapse of US higher education has begun

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“The court finds that she does not pose a danger to the community, nor does she present a risk of flight. The court orders the government to release Ms Ozturk from custody immediately,” Sessions said.

Lawyers for Ozturk, a Turkish citizen in the US on a student visa, had argued that the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport her violated her constitutional rights, including to free speech and due process.

Sessions appeared to side with the legal team’s argument, saying Ozturk’s “continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens”.

Ozturk’s lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said in a statement she was “relieved and ecstatic” about the judge’s order but that it came far too late.

“When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?” she said.

The 30-year-old Ozturk had appeared at the Vermont hearing via video from a detention centre in Louisiana, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a hijab.

During her testimony, she recounted being surrounded and detained by plain-clothed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents near her student housing in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Surveillance video of that incident later spread online, sparking outrage.

She said she suffered a series of asthma attacks, 12 in total, as she was being transferred to Louisiana. The first came at the airport in Atlanta, she said, and she did not have all of the medication she needed.

“I was afraid, and I was crying,” she said.

The doctoral student told the judge her studies related to community engagement in children in warzones. She was among dozens of student visa holders and permanent residents targeted by the Trump administration for pro-Palestine advocacy.

The administration has relied on an obscure provision of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the secretary of state to deport someone deemed to “adversely affect US foreign policy interests”.

Officials have broadly portrayed pro-Palestinian protests and other forms of advocacy as “anti-Semitic”, despite providing scant evidence in individual cases.

Still, Ozturk’s detention has been notable given her relatively low public profile, with her only public advocacy coming in the form of an article she co-wrote with three other students for the campus newspaper. The piece criticised the university’s response to student-led calls for administrators to acknowledge “Palestinian genocide” and “disclose its investments and divest from companies” with links to Israel.

Speaking at Friday’s hearings, Ozturk said Tufts would provide her housing if she is released, and her friends and lawyers would drive her to future court hearings.

She added that she remained committed to finishing her PhD degree.

The judge’s order on Friday came just over a week after Mohsen Mahdawi, a US permanent resident and pro-Palestine protest leader at Columbia University, was released from immigration detention by another federal judge in Vermont.

On Thursday, Mahdawi, who still faces an ongoing deportation case, announced the creation of the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund, to help immigrants facing deportation hearings.

Speaking to Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey, Mahdawi recounted being detained by immigration officials as he attended a citizenship hearing in Vermont in April.

He said ICE agents had sought to transfer him to the more conservative jurisdiction in Louisiana, as they had done with Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, another Columbia University protest leader targeted for deportation.

Mahdawi added that the move was meant to isolate him from his community and legal support.

“They had the aeroplane ticket, commercial flight printed with my name on it, but I was lucky enough that we missed the flight by nine minutes,” Mahdawi said.

That brief window, he explained, gave his lawyers time to intervene. They sought and received a temporary restraining order preventing Mahdawi from being transferred out of the state.

Mahdawi credits remaining in Vermont with paving the way to his release.

“I mean, if the plan worked out as they have laid it down, we would not be having this interview,” he said.

Prior to Ozturk’s hearing on Friday, Judge Sessions had ordered her to be transferred to Vermont no later than May 14, as that is where she was held at the time her lawyers filed an initial petition for her release.

Sessions, however, decided to continue with her bail hearing even before Ozturk was physically moved. The Trump administration had previously appealed an earlier deadline for her transfer to Vermont, set for May 1.

Ozturk has not been accused of any crime. The Trump administration has offered little justification for its decision to revoke Ozturk’s student visa, pointing only to the article she co-authored and claiming she was “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students”.

The administration has broadly claimed that visa holders are not afforded the same constitutional rights protections as US citizens, a question that could eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefly weighed in on Friday’s decision during her daily news briefing, where she reiterated the administration’s position that such rulings are tantamount to judicial interference.

“We’ve made quite clear that lower-level judges should not be dictating the foreign policy of the United States, and we absolutely believe that the president and the Department of Homeland Security are well within their legal rights to deport illegal immigrants,” she said.

“It is a privilege, not a right, to come to this country on a visa,” she added.

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V.I. National Guard Sounds Alarm on Budget Gaps, Delayed Payments, and Loss of Air Support

The head of the Virgin Islands National Guard Tuesday laid bare a series of critical concerns during testimony before the Senate Budget, Appropriations, and Finance Committee — from delayed payments to soldiers on duty, to the loss of the territory’s aviation assets and long-standing budget execution failures that threaten operations.
At the core of the hearing was VING’s fiscal year 2026 budget request: $3,243,939 from the General Fund, paired with $39.1 million in projected federal support. The federal share remains 12 times larger, and while it funds the bulk of operations, Adjutant General Kodjo Knox-Limbacker told lawmakers the local government’s portion is crucial for programs that directly serve residents.
That includes $982,242 for the Youth About Face and Forward March program, $150,000 for the VI National Guard Pension Fund, and $2.9 million to support core operations and territorial readiness. But Knox-Limbacker warned that the problem isn’t just what’s in the budget — it’s the lack of consistent access to funds that are already approved.
“Every year since I’ve been here, we’ve not been able to execute the money we were allocated and approved to have,” he said, citing delayed disbursements – including this year’s fourth quarter allotment – that impact security and maintenance requirements, among other things.
One of the most immediate concerns, he added, is how the territory funds Territorial Active Duty. These are often short-term mobilizations — such as crowd control during Carnival — when local agencies, like the V.I. Police Department, call on National Guard troops to assist. But while the agencies provide “funding lines” to cover the costs, the lines are often empty.
“When the funding line hits, there’s no money,” Knox-Limbacker said. “We’re left waiting for reimbursement, which can take significant time.” The delays have had real consequences. During this year’s St. Thomas Carnival, he said, soldiers declined to volunteer after not being paid for their service during the St. Croix festivities.
“I will not call my soldiers somewhere where they will not be paid,” Knox-Limbacker said. “And I will not ask them to volunteer.”
He urged lawmakers to establish a dedicated fund, calling it a “final solution set” to a long-standing problem that previous proposals failed to fix. Sen. Novelle Francis said the Senate had already met Monday night to draft legislation addressing the issue. Meanwhile, Sen. Kurt Vialet noted that just over $1 million in the Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund has also been earmarked for TAD and said he would follow up with VIPD to determine whether those funds are being used exclusively by the department.
Another issue raised was the loss of the territory’s aviation unit, once composed of two smaller helicopters and fully trained flight personnel. The story told Tuesday, in response to questions from Sen. Avery Lewis about the opportunities available for students interested in piloting, was personal for Knox-Limbacker, who explained that it was the reason he returned to the Virgin Islands in 2018. By then, the unit had already been dismantled; the aircraft reassigned and the personnel dispersed. Still, he said, the Guard was able to move the remaining team to Michigan, where they reached readiness level one and were successfully deployed to the U.S. Southwest border to support Homeland Security missions.

“How successful was it? The unit that replaced them crashed and killed everyone on board,” Knox-Limbacker said, emphasizing the Virgin Islands team’s preparedness and performance. “They were ready. They were proficient.”
Bringing them home, however, required building a hangar — a $24 million project funded through the National Defense Authorization Act. But when bids came back at $1,700 per square foot, the Department of Defense deemed the project too expensive, especially for a facility that would house just two helicopters.
“They say the most expensive place to build in the Virgin Islands is St. John,” he said. “Think about it. It’s a hangar, not a house. A hangar.”
To restart the process, Congress would have had to reauthorize the funding, which Knox-Limbacker described as “five-year money.” That didn’t happen. Instead, he aircraft were reassigned to another state, while the funding was paired with an additional $40 million to construct a weapons of mass destruction Civil Support Team facility on the Guard’s Estate Bethlehem compound on St. Croix.
Meanwhile, the territory remains without Department of Defense aviation or maritime assets — an absence Knox-Limbacker said has been acknowledged at the highest levels of the military.
“We are left in the Virgin Islands without any air or sea assets to support us in all-hazards events,” he said, adding that for the past two years, the Guard has been coordinating with a team out of El Paso, Texas, to help fill the gap.
Faced with mounting concerns, Francis asked Knox-Limbacker what aspects of the budget keep him up at night. The Adjutant General pointed to a recurring pattern: receiving an approved executive budget each year, only to be hamstrung by delayed disbursements and funds that never fully materialize.

“We build our budgets based on forecasts and try to stay within those limits,” he said. “But what happens is, when agencies exceed their own overtime or spending projections, the money has to come from somewhere. And often it comes from us – agencies that are staying within a balanced budget.”
He added, “We don’t have a revenue problem in the Virgin Islands. We have a spending problem. And until that’s addressed, it’s going to continue to impact those of us doing things by the book – vendors don’t get paid on time, and services are delayed.”

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