Mohsen Mahdawi speaks outside the courthouse after a judge released the Palestinian student activist on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 in Burlington, Vt. (AP Photo/Amanda Swinhart)
FILE - Protesters gather outside federal court during a hearing for Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey who was detained by immigration authorities, April 3, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi, File)
Appeals court to hear cases of 2 university students, one detained, the other recently released
A federal appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in the cases of a Turkish Tufts University student who has been detained by immigration authorities for six weeks and a Palestinian student at Columbia University who was recently released from detention.
Mohsen Mahdawi speaks outside the courthouse after a judge released the Palestinian student activist on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 in Burlington, Vt. (AP Photo/Amanda Swinhart)
A federal appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments Tuesday in the cases of a Turkish Tufts University student who has been detained by immigration authorities for six weeks and a Palestinian student at Columbia University who was recently released from detention.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York, is expected to hear motions filed by the U.S. Justice Department regarding Rumeysa Ozturk and Mohsen Mahdawi. The department is appealing decisions made by two federal judges in Vermont. It also wants to consolidate the students’ cases, saying they present similar legal questions.
Immigration court proceedings for Ozturk and Mahdawi are being conducted separately.
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A district court that Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student, be brought to the state from a Louisiana immigration detention center by May 1 for hearings to determine whether she was illegally detained. Ozturk鈥檚 lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.
The appeals court paused that order last week in order to consider the government’s motion.
Congress limited federal-court jurisdiction over immigration matters, the Justice Department said. It said an immigration court in Louisiana has jurisdiction over Ozturk’s case.
Immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in a Boston suburb March 25 and drove her to New Hampshire and Vermont before putting her on a plane to the detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university鈥檚 response to student activists demanding that Tufts 鈥渁cknowledge the Palestinian genocide,鈥 disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
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The government is also challenging another judge’s decision to in Vermont on April 30. Mahdawi led protests at Columbia University against Israel’s war in Gaza. He was arrested by immigration officials during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship.
Mahdawi, 34, has been a legal permanent resident for 10 years. He was in a Vermont state prison since April 14. In his release order, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said Mahdawi has raised a 鈥渟ubstantial claim that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees.鈥
Mahdawi鈥檚 release allows him to travel outside his home state of Vermont and attend graduation next month in New York. He recently completed coursework at Columbia and planned to begin a master鈥檚 degree program there in the fall.
