Ozturk\u2019s arrest on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, was captured in a viral video that drew criticism from civil rights groups.<\/p>\n
She was detained after the State Department revoked her student visa as the Trump administration moved to crack down on non-citizens who engaged in anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian activism on campuses.<\/p>\n
The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts\u2019 student newspaper a year earlier, criticizing her school\u2019s response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
The former Fulbright scholar was held for 45 days in a detention facility in Louisiana until a federal judge in Vermont, where she had briefly been held, ordered her immediately released after finding she raised a substantial claim that her detention constituted unlawful retaliation in violation of her free speech rights under the US Constitution\u2019s First Amendment.<\/p>\n
Following her release, Ozturk, a child development researcher, resumed her studies at Massachusetts-based Tufts.<\/p>\n
But the administration\u2019s refusal to restore her SEVIS record has prevented her from teaching or working as a research assistant, leading her lawyers to ask Casper to order its reinstatement so her academic and career development would not be further jeopardized in the final months before she graduates.<\/p>\n
Casper, who was appointed by Democratic then-president Barack Obama, said the administration had provided \u201cshifting justifications\u201d for terminating Ozturk\u2019s SEVIS record, at times wrongly claiming she had failed to maintain her lawful, foreign student status.<\/p>\n
To the extent it now acknowledges she complied with rules governing foreign students like herself, \u201cit is all the more irrational that the government has imposed negative consequences on her that are inconsistent with that status,\u201d Casper wrote.<\/p>\n
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
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