Doctorate student at TUFTS University out of police custody after the judge ordered her release

On Friday, a doctoral student student from Tufts University was released from ice custody after a federal judge of Vermont ordered that it was released on bail.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was detained in March after his visa was revoked by the Trump administration.

US District Judge William Sessions criticized the government by ordering Ozturk to be released while their case against his product, saying that the government had produced no evidence against it outside of an editorial that it co-written in its student newspaper last year.

“I put the government in opinion that they should immediately present such evidence, and it was three weeks ago, and there was no evidence that was presented by the government other than the OP-ED. I mean, it is literally the case. There is no evidence here regarding the motivation in the absence of the OP-ED,” he said when he releases on Friday.

Ozturk’s legal team confirmed its release from the detention center in Louisiana with ABC News on Friday evening.

Ozturk testified remotely during her surety hearing of the Louisiana detention center where she was detained since the ice agents arrested her near her house in the Massachusetts on March 25.

His lawyers argued that the former Fulbright scholarship holder was targeted by the Trump administration due to a column that she co-wrote in her student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to resolutions approved by the Senate of the Community Union toft.

These resolutions have called on the university to “recognize the Palestinian genocide, to apologize for the declarations of the president of the Sunil Kumar University, to reveal his investments and to divest companies with direct or indirect links with Israel,” she wrote in opinion.

The lawyer representing the Government did not counter-examine Ozturk during the release hearing on Friday surety, nor offered any witness who could testify why she was a threat to foreign policy, as the administration alleged her.

The judge’s sessions also underlined several of the declarations which were submitted to the defense of Ozturk, attesting to his “peaceful and compassionate character”.

“I will simply express my own observation and that it is a woman who is simply completely engaged in her university career. He is someone who probably does not have many other things that happen, except to tender the hand to other members of the community in a benevolent and compassionate way,” said the judge.

“There is absolutely no evidence that it has initiated violence or recommended violence. It has no criminal record. It has done nothing other than to attend its university essentially and to extend its contacts within the community in such a favorable way,” he said.

In a statement to ABC News published after his arrest last month, a spokesman for the Ministry of Homeland Security said: “The DHS and the ICE surveys found Ozturk engaged in Hamas supporting activities, a foreign terrorist organization that savor the murder of the Americans.

The judge also declared preventively that it was not open to the granting of the suspension of his order. Instead, he ordered the government to submit a set of conditions that ice would impose on its release.

“I would like to know immediately when she is released,” he said.

Dressed in a hijab, glasses and an orange combination, Ozturk testified via zoom on humanitarian work in which she is involved in the context of her studies on the development of the child. She also testified on her involvement in school groups and projects.

Ozturk told the judge that she had organized an event that she called “collective mourning for children suffering from war and conflicts” which aimed to help children “from Gaza to Israel, from Russia to Ukraine … from all regions of the world”.

“I think that as people who work in the academic world for the development of the child and well-being, it is sometimes possible that we forget the emotional touch or the grief extending to the children with whom we do not necessarily work,” she said. “But that does not mean that we do not cry for other children, all are ours, from all parts of the world which experience very sad events, including war and conflicts.”

Ozturk said during the hearing that, if she was released on bail, Tofts had offered her several accommodation options she hopes to take to finish her doctorate.

In the oath statements and court hearings, Ozturk and his lawyers stressed that the urgent need for her release, noting that she had at least 12 asthma attacks since she was detained. They also accused the detention center of being overcrowded and unhealthy, which they believe could affect its well-being.

At one point during the hearing, she obtained a break to take drugs against asthma after appearing in several points to hug her chest as she was fighting to speak. She testified that she had an asthma attack at an Atlanta airport when she was transported to Louisiana.

“I was afraid and I was crying,” she said, adding that her daily maintenance inhaler was not initially provided to him.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that the government had revoked the Ozturk visa due to its pro-Palestinian activism.

“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason you come to the United States is not only because you want to write operations, but because you want to participate in movements involved to do things like the vandalization of universities, harass students, take care of buildings, create a ruckus-we cannot give you more visa.