Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — A federal judge ruled Friday to move the immigration case of a detained Tuft's University doctoral student to Vermont.
This came one day after Rümeysa Öztürk’s lawyers argued before U.S. District Judge Denise Casper at John Joseph Moakley courthouse in Boston for Öztürk and her case to be brought back to Massachusetts. Lawyers raised serious issues regarding the process of her arrest.
“They secretly hopscotched her across New England, New Hampshire and Vermont, in an effort to evade accountability with the courts,” Carol Rose, executive director of ACLU Massachusetts, told WBZ Newsradio outside the courthouse on Thursday.
Öztürk, a doctoral student from Turkey, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers (ICE) in Somerville while walking to dinner on March 25. She was moved across state lines to a detention center in Louisiana, where she now remains.
Her legal team argued she was targeted due to an editorial she co-authored last year critiquing the war in Gaza.
“The notion that we are locking people up and disappearing them because they wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper is just shocking to the conscience and the people of America won’t stand for it,” Rose said, adding that Öztürk has yet to be charged with a crime. “She never should’ve been grabbed off the streets in Somerville and secretly moved 1,300 miles away from her community.”
Furthermore, Öztürk's lawyers alleged that immigration officers moved Öztürk despite an order barring her transfer.
“This all happened without notice to the court, without notice to her counsel despite a court order,” Jessie Rossman, legal director for ACLU Massachusetts, said.
Meanwhile, ICE said they moved her because there was no detention center for women in Massachusetts. Lawyers representing the immigration officers argued that the government did not disobey the judge because Öztürk had already been moved outside of Massachusetts by the time the order came down.
On Friday, Casper ordered all subsequent hearings in Öztürk's case to take place in Vermont. Casper said her previous order barring Öztürk's deportation remains in effect.
“Today’s ruling brings us one step closer to restoring Rümeysa Öztürk’s rights and sends a clear message that the government cannot manipulate jurisdiction in order to target human rights defenders,” Mahsa Khanbabai, Öztürk’s lawyer, said in a statement.
WBZ NewsRadio's Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.