You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A federal judge in Vermont has ordered the release of Tufts Ph.D. student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was detained in Louisiana since ICE arrested her in March, primarily for co-writing an essay critical of Israel for the Tufts student newspaper, The New York Times reported.
“Her continued detention cannot stand,” said the judge, William Sessions III, on Friday. “There has been no evidence that has been introduced by the government other than the Op-Ed.”
On Thursday, a federal appeals court ruled that Öztürk, a Turkish national, should be moved from Louisiana to Vermont, where she was when her lawyer first challenged her detention. But Judge Sessions expedited her case and on Friday, she appeared before him via video feed from the detention center in Louisiana, where she has suffered asthma attacks.
Her lawyer said she was “relieved and ecstatic” about Öztürk's release. She is now free to return to Somerville and finish her dissertation or travel wherever she pleases.
Meanwhile, Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian doctoral student at the University of Alabama who has spent the last six weeks in the same Louisiana prison as Öztürk, has decided to “self-deport,” the Associated Press reported—even though the government has dropped its charges against him.
Doroudi’s visa was inexplicably revoked in June 2023, but he could legally remain in the U.S. as long as he was a student; he just wouldn’t be allowed to return if he left. In March, ICE arrested Doroudi, alleging that he “posed significant national security concerns,” without detailing what they were.
The Department of Homeland Security has since agreed to drop the charges, though a judge asked officials to submit the change in writing, as well as request a second hearing about Doroudi’s visa status, CBS reported.
“In the face of this legal uncertainty and prolonged detention, Mr. Doroudi chose to leave voluntarily,” his lawyer, David Rozas, said. “This is not only a loss for him personally, but a setback for our system. When due process is delayed or denied, when charges are sustained without standing, and when individuals are forced to choose between uncertain length of detention in a country they feel no longer wants them, or leaving voluntarily, we must ask what kind of precedent we are setting not just for foreign students, but for fairness and justice in America.”
