Judge Orders Release of Tufts Student Detained by ICE

A federal judge in Vermont ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student whose sudden arrest in March led to a public outcry.

Ms. Ozturk, a former Fulbright scholar, has been in detention since March 25, when she was surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in masks and plainclothes outside her home in Somerville, Mass. The agents handcuffed and hustled her into an unmarked car, and then drove her through New Hampshire to Vermont, where she was put on a plane to Louisiana.

In seeking her release, her lawyers have accused the government of detaining her in unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech. The main evidence against her appears to be an essay critical of Israel that she helped to write in a Tufts student newspaper last year.

Video footage of Ms. Ozturk’s detention went viral, leading to public outrage of her treatment by critics who say the government is abusing the immigration system to deport international students.

Ms. Ozturk has spent six weeks in detention in Louisiana and has endured unsanitary conditions that have triggered increasingly severe asthma attacks, her lawyers said in court documents.

Earlier this week, a federal appeals court ordered that she be transferred to Vermont by next week to attend a bail hearing. But the judge in her case, William K. Sessions, decided to hold the hearing with Ms. Ozturk still in Louisiana and ordered her release.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.