Washington — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to comply with a lower court order that requires it to transfer Tufts Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk from a detention facility in Louisiana to Vermont.
The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected a bid for emergency relief sought by the Trump administration in Ozturk’s challenge to her detention. The decision came after the 2nd Circuit panel heard arguments Tuesday on the Justice Department’s request for it to pause a district court’s order that required Ozturk to be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Vermont.
Ozturk is currently detained at an immigration facility in Basile, Louisiana. A bail hearing in her challenge to her confinement is set to take place at the federal district court in Vermont on Friday. The judges on the 2nd Circuit said the Trump administration has one week — until May 14 — to comply with the district court’s transfer order.
Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral candidate at Tufts, was taken into custody by plainclothes law enforcement officers near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25 after the Trump administration revoked her student visa. She was not notified of the revocation beforehand, according to court documents.
As justification for her arrest and detention, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have said that Ozturk “had been involved in associations that ‘may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization,'” court filings show.
In 2024, Ozturk had co-authored an editorial in the Tufts’ student newspaper that criticized the school for its dismissal of several resolutions adopted by the undergraduate student senate as a “sincere effort to hold Israel accountable for clear violations of international law.” The editorial did not mention Hamas.
Ozturk is one of hundreds of students studying at American universities who have had their visas rescinded after they were accused of expressing support for Palestinians or participating in campus protests.
After she was arrested, Ozturk was transported to Methuen, Massachusetts, then Lebanon, New Hampshire, followed by St. Albans, Vermont, where she was kept overnight. On the morning of March 26, in Burlington, Vermont, Ozturk was put on a plane and flown to Louisiana, where she is currently in custody at an immigration facility in Basile.
Ozturk’s lawyers filed a petition challenging her arrest and detention as a violation of the First and Fifth Amendments in federal district court in Massachusetts. But the case was transferred to the U.S. district court in Vermont after it was determined that Ozturk was detained in that state at the time the petition was filed.
The Justice Department sought to dismiss Ozturk’s petition, claiming the district court in Vermont lacks jurisdiction since Ozturk is confined in Louisiana. But Ozturk’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge William Sessions to order her to be released or transferred to Vermont while her claims are adjudicated. Sessions last month ruled that Ozturk had to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont by May 1. He also set a bail hearing for May 9, with Ozturk appearing in person, and will consider the merits of her habeas petition on May 22.
The 2nd Circuit then temporarily halted Sessions’ order while it considered the Trump administration’s emergency appeal. The three judges who considered the bid for relief are Barrington Parker, Susan Carney and Alison Nathan.