New York, NY—Today, Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk will be released on bail from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention by Judge William Sessions of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont. Öztürk, who is in the United States from Turkey on a student visa, was abducted by masked federal agents on March 25 on a street in Somersville, Massachusetts. The evidence cited by the Trump administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for her detention was an op-ed in The Tufts Daily. Öztürk was held at the South Louisiana Correctional Center in Basile, Louisiana.
Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition:
“Donald Trump’s unlawful and unconstitutional detentions of students because of their protected speech must end. The judge’s ruling to release Rümeysa Öztürk is just another example that Trump is systematically circumventing the laws of our nation in a bid to consolidate his power and silence political opposition. Today, Rümeysa Öztürk will be freed from detention. The government’s case must now be thrown out, and Öztürk should be able to return to her studies. The rest of Trump’s political prisoners, like Mahmoud Khalil and Dr. Badar Khan Suri, must also be freed. America is facing a constitutional crisis. People’s rights are being threatened and trampled on. This is a clarion call for all who call this country home: when anyone's rights are under attack, all of our rights are. Demand that your elected officials who have been standing on the sidelines join the right side of history and fight back against these horrific injustices.”