First Amendment

Jacob Sullum | 2.10.2026 5:10 PM

Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was targeted for deportation nearly a year ago because she had co-authored an anti-Israel op-ed piece that appeared in a student newspaper, can remain in the United States thanks to a recent decision by an immigration judge. In that ruling, which came to light this week after Ozturk's lawyers mentioned it in federal court, Judge Roopal Patel, who works for the Justice Department, concluded that there was no legal basis to deport Ozturk.

The Trump administration can ask the Board of Immigration Appeals, an administrative body within the Justice Department, to review that decision. But Ozturk is safe for now. "Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system's flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the U.S. government," she said in a written statement. "Though the pain that I and thousands of other women wrongfully imprisoned by ICE have faced cannot be undone, it is heartening to know that some justice can prevail after all."

Ozturk, a Turkish citizen, was one of several international students targeted by the speech-based deportation campaign that President Donald Trump began promising on the campaign trail and repeatedly trumpeted after taking office. She was arrested by masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents outside her apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25. Her lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition in Massachusetts, but it was transferred to Vermont after she was sent there. She was later sent to an ICE detention center in Louisiana, where she remained until William K. Sessions, a federal judge in Vermont, ordered her release on May 9.

In a March 21 memo explaining the justification for revoking Ozturk's student visa, a State Department official said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had determined that she was "involved in associations that 'may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a........

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