Rümeysa Öztürk, the Turkish graduate student who spent weeks in federal immigration detention in Vermont and other states after an op-ed she co-wrote drew the ire of President Donald Trump’s administration, walked free from custody Friday. On Saturday, she arrived back in her home state of Massachusetts.
Öztürk’s release came at the order of a federal judge in Vermont around midday Friday. The Tufts University student’s case has captured wide attention amid the White House’s crackdown on students who, like her, have voiced opinions related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
The op-ed Öztürk co-authored criticized her school’s response to the war in Gaza. On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge William K. Sessions III said during his ruling that the opinion piece, published in the school newspaper, was the only evidence the government had presented to justify her arrest.
Öztürk was in custody at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Basile, Louisiana, at the time Sessions ordered her release. She walked out of the facility alongside one of her lawyers Friday afternoon, just hours after Sessions’ ruling, according to news reports.
On Saturday evening, Öztürk touched down at Boston Logan International Airport, news reports said, where she then spoke to reporters flanked by attorneys and several top Massachusetts political leaders. The Tufts University campus is located just north of Boston.
“America is the greatest democracy in the world, and I believe in those values,” Öztürk told reporters. “I have faith in the American system of justice.”
Öztürk said in court testimony Friday that she was eager to return to school to continue her doctoral program in child development, which she had been slated to complete by the end of the year. She has also been looking forward to teaching a summer course for high-schoolers, she said, addressing the court over video from the Louisiana detention center.
While she has been freed from ICE custody, Öztürk still faces the prospect of deportation through proceedings that are ongoing in federal immigration court. Those proceedings are separate from her legal case in Vermont.
