Administrative Stay Does Not Bear on Merits of Case.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 29, 2025
MEDIA CONTACTS:
ACLU Media, [email protected]
ACLU of Massachusetts, [email protected]
ACLU of Vermont, [email protected]
NEW YORK – The Second Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday issued an administrative stay while it considers the government’s request for an emergency stay of Judge Sessions’ order to transfer Rümeysa Öztürk to Vermont, as well as her legal team’s opposition to that request. The appeals court ordered the government to reply to her opposition by Thursday, May 1, and set arguments for Tuesday, May 6. The Second Circuit’s order is not a ruling on the merits of the government’s request to keep Ms. Öztürk in a Louisiana detention center.
Ms. Öztürk’s legal team released the following statement in response: “Rümeysa Öztürk never should have been arrested and detained, period. We are ready to argue her case before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and we won’t stop fighting until she is free.”
Ms. Öztürk, a former Fulbright scholar and current Tufts University Ph.D. student researching child development, was arrested on March 25 by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Massachusetts in retaliation for co-authoring an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper. After the arrest, the government transported her through multiple states, then flew her thousands of miles away to Louisiana.
On April 4, just 24 hours after a court hearing, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the challenge to ICE’s detention of Ms. Öztürk should continue in Vermont, not Louisiana. The U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont affirmed that Ms. Öztürk’s federal case should continue in Vermont and that the government must transfer her back to a facility in Vermont by May 1. The government appealed this decision last week.
Ms. Öztürk is represented in immigration court by Mahsa Khanbabai and Marty Rosenbluth, and in federal court by Mahsa Khanbabai, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Massachusetts, ACLU of Vermont, CLEAR, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP.
