Immigration Judge Rules Tufts Student Cannot Be Deported

An immigration judge found there were no grounds to deport Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University. The decision by Judge Roopal Patel came last month and was disclosed in federal court by the student’s lawyers; it effectively means the government has no legal justification to remove her.

Judge Roopal, who as an immigration judge is a Justice Department employee, blocked any further proceedings, though the government can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Ms. Ozturk was arrested in Somerville, Mass., in March 2025; footage of her being whisked into a car by masked government agents prompted an outcry.

She was held in detention in Louisiana for 45 days until a federal judge in Vermont released her on bail. Documents in a different Massachusetts case showed the sole reason the government sought to deport Ms. Ozturk was that she co-wrote an editorial in the Tufts student newspaper urging the school to consider pro-Palestinian student resolutions related to Israel.

United States, Somerville, Massachusetts

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