The ruling came months after the Tufts doctoral student was released from ICE custody after being detained for opposing Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.
A federal judge’s ruling that Rumeisa Ozturk’s student visa record must be restored comes months after the Tufts student was released from immigration detention for speaking out against Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.
U.S. District Judge Dennis Casper issued a preliminary ruling on Monday that President Donald Trump’s administration must restore Ozturk’s name to a database of foreign students maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), known as SEVIS.
Recommended stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
Once the SEVIS records are returned, Ozturk, a doctoral student in child development and media at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, will be able to work and participate in research-related research, attorneys said.
In a statement responding to the ruling, Ozturk said his student record was “unlawfully revoked” because he co-authored an op-ed that advocated “the equal dignity and humanity of all people.”
“After eight long months, that record is finally being restored,” she said.
“After experiencing this brutality, which began with my illegal arrest and 45-day detention in a disgraceful for-profit ICE prison in Louisiana, I feel more connected to all those who are denied the right to education, especially in the Gaza Strip,” Ozturk added, noting that in the Palestinian enclave, “countless academics have been murdered and universities of all kinds are being deliberately destroyed.”
Ozturk, who came to the United States from Turkiye to study as a Fulbright Scholar, was placed in immigration detention on March 25 after his student visa was revoked as part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on students who spoke out against Israel’s brutal war in Gaza.
Many universities had already begun a harsh crackdown on protests, including student camps at Columbia University in New York, with the aim of suppressing criticism of the war, and received significant funding and political support from the US government and corporations.
“It is truly saddening how much valuable knowledge is currently being lost here in the United States due to widespread fear of punishment within academia,” Ozturk said in a statement Monday.
She was one of four Tufts University students who co-authored an article published in the Tufts Daily student newspaper on March 26, 2024, calling on the university to “recognize the genocide of the Palestinian people” and implement a student resolution to “disclose investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”
The Trump administration announced that it had revoked her visa because she had “engaged in activities supporting the foreign terrorist organization Hamas.”
Jesse Rothman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, one of the groups representing Ozturk, said he was grateful her record would be restored after months of “unlawful and unjust treatment.”
“Ms. Ozturk came to Massachusetts as a scholar who studies childhood development and media, and we would all benefit if she could fully participate in the doctoral program,” Rothman said in a statement.
Although many of the students arrested by the Trump administration for pro-Palestinian activities have since been released from detention, several, including former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, continue to face legal issues related to their immigration status.
Meanwhile, Requa Cordia, a 32-year-old Palestinian woman who participated in the Columbia University protest, remains in immigration detention months after her arrest on March 13, according to Amnesty International.
