A federal judge on Friday ordered a Tufts University student to be detained by Louisiana’s immigration agency and taken to Vermont by May 1.
US District Judge William Sessions said he would hear the demand that Rumeysa Ozturk be released from custody.
Her lawyers had requested that she be released soon or at least be brought back to Vermont.
The 30-year-old doctoral student was taken to an immigration officer on March 25th while walking down the streets outside Somerville, a suburb of Boston.
After being taken to New Hampshire and Vermont, she was placed on a plane the following day and moved to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Center in Basil, Louisiana.
The immigration judge denied the bond request on Wednesday.
Ozturk is one of several people associated with American universities whose visas have been revoked or stopped entering the United States after being accused of attending demonstrations and publicly expressing support for Palestinians.
The Louisiana immigration judge ruled that the US could deport Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University, could pose national security risks.
Oztzurku’s lawyers are challenging the legal authority of ICE detention.
They asked her to be released from custody anytime soon or otherwise return to Vermont while her immigration case continued.
A Justice Department lawyer said her case should be dismissed, saying that immigration courts have jurisdiction.
Ozturk’s lawyer filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts.
Initially, they didn’t know where she was.
They said they were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was taken into custody.
Ozturk himself said he failed multiple requests to speak to his lawyer.
Ozturk is one of four students who wrote OP-ED for the campus newspaper The Tufts last year, and last year he criticised the university’s response to student activists demanding that Taft “recognizes the Palestinian genocide,” revealing its investments and building ties with Israel from companies.
Oztzurk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and legitimate proceedings.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said last month that it investigated the investigation was engaged in activities to support Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.
