By Isabel Conforme
Correspondent
A United States immigration judge dropped the case of a Tufts University graduate student, who was arrested by immigrant officials last year, her lawyers said Feb. 9.
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. student, was leaving her off-campus apartment in Massachusetts when she was detained by masked federal agents without explanation in March 2025.
After spending six weeks in a detention center located in Louisiana, she was released by order of a Vermont district judge, according to the New York Times.
Öztürk’s F-1 student visa was terminated the day after her detention, due to her being a “non-immigrant status violator,” and the U.S. believed that her presence in the country would result in “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” as expressed by Tufts University in a statement.
The university affirmed that Öztürk’s standing in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System showed no problem and that all regulations for student visas had been followed.
Öztürk’s arrest happened a year after co-authoring an opinion editorial for the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, criticizing the response of Tufts University regarding the War in Gaza, and demanding an apology from University President Sunil Kumar.
According to CNN, newly unsealed court documents show the Trump administration did not have evidence linking Öztürk to terrorism or antisemitic activity, despite earlier claims made by federal officials. These actions raised questions about the legal basis for her arrest and student visa revocation.
The court released a filing on Feb. 9 with the immigration judge's decision, announcing that the Department of Homeland Security “had not met its burden of proving removability," prompting the judge to close and warn that continued detention could chill speech protected under the First Amendment.
A bipartisan statement was published in April 2025 on The Daily Tufts. Co-authored by Tufts Republicans and Tufts Democrats, both student organizations expressed their concern regarding the detention of Öztürk, and highlighted that the action taken by the government discouraged “open dialogue and intellectual exploration.”
Öztürk is one of the many international students whose visas have been revoked during President Donald Trump’s second term, with the accusation of being involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
