Judge rules Tufts student's detention case to be heard in Vermont, not Louisiana

A federal judge in Boston has transferred a legal challenge on the detention of a Tufts University doctoral student to Vermont.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national, has been in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana, since last week. But she was originally detained by federal immigration agents in Somerville and driven hours north to a jail in St. Albans, Vermont, where she spent the night.

Her lawyer filed a petition in Massachusetts that night asking a judge to rule on whether her arrest was lawful — unaware that Öztürk had been moved out of state.

Lawyers representing immigration officials argued the challenge should be dismissed, or transferred to Louisiana.

Öztürk's lawyers argued the case should remain in Massachusetts, or else be transferred to Vermont.

U.S. District Judge Denise Casper agreed that a transfer to Vermont was warranted, because that's where she was physically located at the time of that filing.

In a footnote, however, she did not rule out the possibility that a court in Vermont could disagree.

"It will be for the District of Vermont to determine if it has jurisdiction over Öztürk’s Petition notwithstanding her later transfer to Louisiana after the filing of the Petition that is now transferred there."

Jessie Rossman, legal director at ACLU of Massachusetts, in a statement said, “The Court rightfully, and with appropriate urgency, rejected the Trump administration’s attempted manipulation to move Rümeysa Öztürk’s case to Louisiana. The speed of this ruling speaks volumes, and this decision is a crucial next step."

The ACLU claims Öztürk was detained for co-authoring an op-ed in a campus newspaper last year. This week, Tufts defended Öztürk, saying that the opinion piece on the war in Gaza did not violate any Tufts policies.

The ACLU statement also said, "We are ready to defend Ms. Öztürk’s rights in Vermont to bring her back to her loved ones and life in Somerville.”