US judge halts deportation of Turkish student who voiced support for Palestine

A US federal judge on March 28 stopped the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who was arrested earlier in the week as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on foreign students who voiced support for Palestinians in Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza.

Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had her visa revoked after being taken into custody by masked immigration officers near her home in Massachusetts on Tuesday.

The Department of Homeland Security has accused her, without providing evidence, of “engaging in activities in support of Hamas”, the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group which the US government has designated a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

Ms Ozturk, a PhD student and Fulbright Scholar, had last year co-authored an opinion piece in the student newspaper that criticised Tufts University's response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide”.

Masked US immigration agents detain Turkish student over pro-Palestine activism

00:44

A lawyer sued to win her release, and on March 28, the American Civil Liberties Union joined her legal defence team, filing a revised lawsuit saying her detention infringed her rights to free speech and due process.

She has been moved to Louisiana despite a court order issued on Tuesday night that she not be moved out of Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice.

In Friday's order, US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston said she was barring Ms Ozturk's deportation temporarily to provide time to resolve whether her court retained jurisdiction over the case. She ordered the Trump administration to respond to Ms Ozturk's complaint by Tuesday.

President Donald Trump has pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestine protesters and has accused them of supporting Hamas, being antisemitic and posing foreign policy hurdles. His government this month cancelled $400 million in funding for Columbia University, which was the centre of nationwide student protests last summer to demand an end to Israel's military assault on Gaza and for their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Columbia University announced on Friday that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, had stepped down and that Claire Shipman, co-chairwoman of the board of trustees, had been appointed acting president. The university did not give a reason for the change, which came a week after the Ivy League school announced a package of measures to address Mr Trump's criticisms over student protests and alleged campus anti-Semitism.

Groups representing Columbia University professors on Tuesday sued the Trump administration over its effort to force the university to tighten rules on campus protests and put a Middle Eastern studies department under outside supervision, among other measures.

Also on Friday, US government lawyers pushed for the deportation hearing of pro-Palestine protest leader Mahmoud Khalil to be moved to a Louisiana court thought to be sympathetic to Mr Trump's hardline immigration crackdown.

Mr Khalil, a graduate student of Columbia University, was arrested and taken to Louisiana earlier this month. The government has not accused him of any crime, but instead ordered his deportation and cancelled his resident's permit, alleging he was undermining US foreign policy.

At a hearing in New Jersey, government lawyer August Flentje said that “for jurisdictional certainty, the case belongs in Louisiana”.

But Mr Khalil's lawyer Baher Azmy accused the government of seeking to move the case to bolster its “retaliation”.

The judge said he would not rule immediately on shifting the case to the Western District of Louisiana, a more conservative bench that has previously leaned towards Mr Trump's policies.

Mr Khalil's arrest has outraged Trump opponents, free speech advocates and some on the political right, who say the case will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Pro-Palestine protesters, including some Jewish groups, also accuse the administration of conflating their criticism of Israel's assault on Gaza and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism and support for Hamas.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the State Department has so far revoked at least 300 visas in connection with the protests.