Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, was detained and Donald Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestin visa holders has been ordered to be released from immigration custody.
On Friday, Vermont-based U.S. District Judge William Sessions ruled that Ozturk's "detention is unbearable."
"The court ruled that she did not pose a danger to the community, nor did she raise a risk of flying. The court ordered the government to release Ms. Ozturk immediately," Sessions said.
Ozturk's lawyer, a Turkish citizen with a U.S. visa, argues that the Trump administration's efforts to detain and deport her violated her constitutional rights, including freedom of speech and due process.
The meeting seemed to be consistent with the legal team's argument, he said Oztuk's "continued detention has the potential to make millions of individuals who are not citizens of this country speak out."
Mahsa Khanbabai, Ozturk's attorney, said in a statement that she was "comfortified and ecstatic" by the judge's order, but it was too late.
"When did the argument against oppression become a crime? When did the things that people who oppose genocide are imprisoned?" she said.
The 30-year-old Ozturk, who appeared in a Vermont hearing in a detention center in Louisiana, wore an orange jumpsuit and a headscarf.
During her testimony, she recounted the siege and detention of Transparent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents near her student housing in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 25.
She said she suffered a series of asthma attacks when she was transferred to Louisiana, a total of 12 times. The first one came from the airport in Atlanta and she didn’t have all the medications she needed.
"I'm scared, I'm crying," she said.
The doctoral student told the judge that her research was related to community participation in the war zone. She is one of dozens of student visa holders and permanent residents that the Trump administration advocates against pro-Palestine.
The government relies on obscure provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which allows the Secretary of State to expel people who are considered "adversely affecting the interests of the U.S. foreign policy."
Despite the lack of evidence provided in individual cases, officials have widely described pro-Palestinian protests and other forms of advocacy as “anti-Semitism.”
Nevertheless, Ozturk's detention remains noteworthy given her relatively low public profile, with her only public advocacy emerging in the form of articles from campus newspapers she co-wrote with three other students. The article criticized the university’s response to student-led call administrators, asking administrators to acknowledge “Palestine genocide” and “disclose its investments and divest from the company” and have ties to Israel.
Ozturk said at a hearing Friday that Tufts would provide her with housing if she was released and her friends and lawyers would take her to a future court hearing.
She added that she remains committed to completing her PhD.
The judge's order on Friday came more than a week after the U.S. permanent resident and personal colonel protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi was released from immigration custody by another Vermont federal judge.
On Thursday, Mahadawi, who is still facing ongoing deportation cases, announced the establishment of a Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund to help immigrants facing deportation hearings.
Speaking on Al Jazeera's Kristen Salomey, Mahdawi said he was detained by immigration officials when he attended a citizenship hearing in Vermont in April.
He said the ice division agents tried to transfer him to Louisiana's more conservative jurisdiction, as they did with another Columbia protest leaders, Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, with the goal of deportation.
Mahdawi added that the move was intended to isolate him from community and legal support.
"They have air tickets with my name on it, but I'm lucky we missed the 9-minute flight," Mahdawi said.
That short window gives lawyers time to intervene, he explained. They seek and receive temporary restraining orders to prevent Mahdawi from being transferred to the state.
Mahdawi stayed in Vermont, paving his way to release.
“I mean, if the plan had the plan made, we wouldn’t have been given this interview,” he said.
Before Friday's hearing, Judge Sessions had ordered her to transfer it to Vermont by May 14 because that was where she was detained when her attorney filed the petition for the initial release.
However, the meeting decided to continue the bail hearing even before Ozturk made a physical move. The Trump administration has previously proposed an earlier deadline, which will be transferred to Vermont on May 1.
Ozturk has not been charged with any crime yet. The Trump administration's decision to revoke Ozturk's student visa has little reason, pointing only to her co-written articles and claiming she "created a hostile environment for Jewish students."
The government widely claims that visa holders do not have the same constitutional rights protection as American citizens, and this issue can ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefly imposed a decision in Friday’s daily news briefing, reaffirming the administration’s position that such a ruling is related to judicial intervention.
“We have made it clear that low-level judges should not decide on U.S. foreign policy and we absolutely believe that the President and the Department of Homeland Security will deport illegal immigrants within their legal rights,” she said.
"Visa is a privilege, not a right," she added.