By KATHY MCCORMACK

A federal appeals courtroom on Wednesday granted a choose’s order to convey a Turkish Tufts College pupil from a Louisiana immigration detention heart again to New England for hearings to find out whether or not her rights have been violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based U.S. 2nd Circuit Court docket of Appeals dominated within the case of Rumeysa Ozturk after attorneys representing her and the U.S. Justice Division offered arguments at a listening to Tuesday. Ozturk has been detained in Louisiana for six weeks following an op-ed she co-wrote final 12 months that criticized the varsity’s response to Israel’s warfare in Gaza.

The courtroom ordered Ozturk to be transferred to ICE custody in Vermont no later than Might 14.

A district courtroom choose in Vermont had earlier ordered that the 30-year-old doctoral pupil be delivered to the state for hearings to find out whether or not she was illegally detained. Ozturk’s attorneys say her detention violates her constitutional rights, together with free speech and due course of.

The Justice Division, which appealed that ruling, mentioned that an immigration courtroom in Louisiana has jurisdiction over her case.

Immigration officers surrounded Ozturk as she walked alongside a road in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont earlier than placing her on a aircraft to a detention heart in Basile, Louisiana.

A Division of Homeland Safety spokesperson mentioned in March, with out offering proof, that investigations discovered that Ozturk engaged in actions in help of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Initially Printed: Might 7, 2025 at 11:28 AM EDT