CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A federal judge in Boston on Friday moved the case of a detained Tufts University doctoral student to Vermont, where the Turkish national was briefly held before being moved to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. After being taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana. Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities who attended demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza and who recently had visas revoked or been stopped from entering the U.
S. Her lawyers filed a petition in Massachusetts seeking her release, but Justice Department lawyers argued that Ozturk’s petition was filed in the wrong state and should be dismissed or transferred to Louisiana. Ozturk’s lawyers said at the time they filed the petition, they had no way of knowing where she was.
They also noted that it was filed while Ozturk was in a vehicle within the control of Massachusetts-based ICE officials, making the Boston court the appropriate venue. U.S.
District Judge Denise Casper on Friday moved the case to Vermont, where Ozturk was being held at the time the petition was filed. In doing so, she cited a federal law that says if a case is filed in the wrong venue.