U.S. immigration judge blocks deportation of Tufts student targeted over Gaza protest views

A U.S. immigration judge has dismissed deportation proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student who was detained last year amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism, according to her legal team.

The ruling was disclosed on Monday in a court filing submitted by Öztürk’s attorneys to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which has been reviewing a related case concerning her earlier release from immigration detention.

Rümeysa Öztürk addresses members of the media outside a federal courthouse in Boston.

In a decision dated Jan. 29, the immigration judge determined that the Department of Homeland Security failed to demonstrate that Öztürk was legally removable from the United States and ordered the case terminated, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union said.

Öztürk’s immigration counsel, Mahsa Khanbabai, said the decision was issued by Boston-based immigration judge Roopal Patel.

The ruling effectively halts, for now, a case that began when immigration authorities arrested Öztürk in March on a Massachusetts street after revoking her student visa. Federal officials cited as their sole justification an opinion article she co-wrote for Tufts’ student newspaper a year earlier, which criticized the university’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

In a statement, Öztürk said the decision brought her relief and expressed hope that her case would offer encouragement to others who believe they were unfairly targeted by the U.S. government.

The immigration judge’s ruling has not been made public, and the administration retains the option to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which operates under the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not respond to a request for comment.

Öztürk’s arrest in Somerville, Massachusetts, was recorded on video that circulated widely online, prompting backlash from civil liberties advocates. A former Fulbright scholar and child development researcher, she spent 45 days in an immigration detention center in Louisiana before a federal judge in Vermont ordered her release, finding she had raised a substantial claim that her detention violated her free speech rights.