The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts joined the legal team fighting the deportation of Tufts Ph.D. graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk with a court filing early Friday – just after 4 a.m.
Öztürk, who was arrested without warning in broad daylight by masked federal agents just after 5 p.m. Tuesday and taken to detention in Louisiana, was previously represented only by immigration attorney Mahsa Khanbabai. On Tuesday at 10:01 p.m., Khanbabai filed a short petition with the federal district court in Boston, challenging Öztürk’s detention. The Department of Justice said that by the time the petition was filed, Öztürk was no longer in Massachusetts, meaning it was too late for the court to stop her movement out of state.
The ACLU has joined forces with Khanbabai and supplemented her three-page habeas corpus petition with a 24-page amended version, which also serves as a civil complaint. In addition to protesting that Öztürk’s due process rights under the Fifth Amendment were violated, Friday’s filing adds two claims:
First, that the arrest was a First Amendment violation because Öztürk was arrested in response to her “past protected speech” and that her arrest will “attempt to chill” Öztürk’s future speech and the speech of others.
Second, that the termination of Öztürk’s visa violates the Administrative Procedure Act, because the visa termination requires a determination by secretary of state Marco Rubio that Öztürk’s presence in the United States “would potentially have serious adverse foreign policy consequences” or “would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” But there’s no evidence Rubio has made such a determination formally, and the government’s targeting of noncitizens in this way is “arbitrary and capricious.”
“Grabbing someone off the streets, stripping them of their student visa and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is an affront to all of our constitutional rights,” said Jessie Rossman, the ACLU’s legal director who signed the new complaint. “We will not stop fighting until Ms. Öztürk is free to return to her loved ones and until we know the government will not abuse immigration law to punish those who speak up for what they believe.”
The Friday filing also gave more information about the legal process under which Öztürk was detained. Öztürk has been given an April 7 hearing date before an immigration judge in Louisiana for the purpose of determining if she is deportable now that her visa has been revoked.
The case is assigned to Judge Denise J. Casper.
Because Öztürk was moved out of Massachusetts before the initial petition was filed on Tuesday night, the court will have to determine whether it has jurisdiction to hear the case. The normal rule is that a habeas corpus petition must be filed in the district where the person is being held, but this morning’s filing argues that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a “pattern and practice of moving people detained for their speech to distant locations incommunicado and in secret to frustrate the ability of counsel to file habeas petitions on their behalf.”
The Friday morning filing asks Casper to order Öztürk returned to Massachusetts and released on bail while the proceedings go on.
On Friday afternoon, Casper issued an order in the case: that Öztürk not be removed from the United States while the court determines its jurisdiction. And she ordered DOJ to respond to the amended petition and complaint by 5 p.m. Tuesday.
A stronger
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