A federal appeals court panel Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to lift a judge’s order to physically transfer detained Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk from Louisiana to Vermont.
The administration has swiftly moved foreign-born students it wants to deport to Louisiana, which would route their legal challenges through more friendly judicial venues.
Within hours of plainclothes officers arresting Öztürk, a Turkish national and Tufts student who co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed in her student newspaper, on March 25 near her Somerville, Mass., home, authorities had moved her to Vermont and then Louisiana.
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III, an appointee of former President Clinton who serves in Vermont, had ruled April 18 that Öztürk’s legal challenge could proceed in his court, because that’s where she was located when her attorneys filed the petition. Sessions ordered the government physically return Öztürk to the state as the challenge proceeds.
The administration appealed that decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which Wednesday declined to halt the order after hearing oral arguments a day earlier.
“Any confusion about where habeas jurisdiction resides arises from the government’s conduct during the twenty-four hours following Öztürk’s arrest,” the panel wrote.
The new order sets a May 14 deadline for the government to return Öztürk to Vermont, where she will remain in custody, for now. A bail hearing is set for Friday.
The unanimous three-judge panel comprised U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr., an appointee of former President George W. Bush; U.S. Circuit Judge Susan Carney, an appointee of former President Obama; and U.S. Circuit Judge Alison Nathan, an appointee of former President Biden.
Öztürk is challenging her detention as unconstitutional retaliation under the First Amendment. Wednesday’s order does not address those issues and instead rejects the Trump administration’s threshold arguments it claimed defeats her case from being considered.
Among other arguments, the government contended Öztürk’s petition needed to name as a defendant the warden of the Vermont detention facility, since that person was the immediate “custodian” overseeing the student’s detention.
The panel instead sided with Öztürk’s lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, who stressed the government provided no information about their client’s whereabouts as she was rapidly transferred following her arrest.
“The government cites no statute or case law for this extraordinary proposition, the practical effect of which would be that for some unspecified period of time after detention — seemingly however long the government chooses to take in transporting a detainee between states or between facilities — a detainee would be unable to file a habeas petition at all, anywhere,” the court wrote.
“Such a rule finds no support in the law and is contrary to longstanding tradition.”
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
