An immigration judge in the US has rejected the Trump administration's efforts to deport Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested last year as part of its targeting of pro-Palestinian campus activists, her lawyers have said.
Lawyers for the Turkish student detailed the immigration judge's decision in a filing with the New York-based 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to her release from immigration custody in May.
An immigration judge on 29 January concluded the US Department of Homeland Security had not met its burden of proving she was removable and terminated the proceedings against her, her lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union wrote.
Her immigration lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said the decision was issued by Immigration Judge Roopal Patel in Boston.
That ended, for now, proceedings that began with Ms Ozturk's arrest by immigration authorities in March on a street in Massachusetts after the US Department of State had revoked her student visa.
Watch: CTV footage shows Rumeysa Ozturk being detained by immigration officers in 2025
The sole basis authorities provided for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-authored in Tufts' student newspaper a year earlier criticising her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.
"Today, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that despite the justice system's flaws, my case may give hope to those who have also been wronged by the US government," Ms Ozturk said in a statement.
The immigration judge's decision is not itself public and the administration could challenge it before the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the US Department of Justice.
A spokesperson for DHS, which oversees US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in a statement said the decision reflected "judicial activism".
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem "has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-American and anti-Semitic violence and terrorism - think again", the spokesperson said.
The arrest of Ms Ozturk, a child development researcher, in the Boston suburb of Somerville, was captured in a viral video that turned her case into one of the highest-profile instances of the effort by US President Donald Trump's administration to deport non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views.
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.
A federal judge in Boston last month ruled that the administration had adopted an unlawful policy of detaining and deporting scholars like Ms Ozturk that chilled the free speech of non-citizen academics at universities.
The Justice Department moved to appeal that decision.
Judge blocks California ban on masks for federal agents
A US federal judge yesterday blocked a California law that would have prohibited federal immigration agents from covering their faces during operations, but upheld that they must display identification.
The use of masks by some unidentified and heavily armed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown has stoked criticism from local leaders in Democratic-run cities.
US District Judge Christina Snyder found California's masking law known as the No Secret Police Act to be discriminatory as it did not apply to state law enforcement officers.
The proposed ban "unlawfully discriminates against federal officers," she wrote.
But the judge upheld a measure that requires agents to show identification and their badge numbers.
Snyder suggested in her ruling that the ban would be constitutional if broadened to cover state law enforcement as well.
Democratic State Senator Scott Wiener, who co-authored the ban's legislation, said Monday he would amend the law and propose a new ban that would include all state officials.
"Now that the Court has made clear that state officers must be included, I am immediately introducing new legislation to include state officers," he wrote in a statement.
"I will do everything in my power to expedite passage of this adjustment to the No Secret Police Act."
Court says US can end Honduran, Nicaraguan, Nepalese migrant protections
A US appeals court has also opened the door for deportations of migrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua with legal protections to live in the United States.
The Trump administration moved last year to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for tens of thousands of Honduran, Nepalese and Nicaraguan nationals, which had allowed them to live in the United States.
A federal judge had vacated the order, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order yesterday to allow the government to proceed with deportations while appealing that decision.
TPS allows narrow groups of people to live and work in the US if they're deemed to be in danger if they return to their home countries, because of war, natural disaster or other extraordinary circumstances.
The previous court's "order vacating the termination of TPS for Nepal, Honduras and Nicaragua is stayed pending appeal," yesterday's decision read.
TPS had applied to more than 51,000 Hondurans and 3,000 Nicaraguans who came to the United States after Hurricane Mitch devastated the Central American nations in 1998.
Around 7,000 Nepalese have TPS protection following a 2015 earthquake in the Asian nation.
Historically presidents have continued to renew TPS status for immigrants rather than revoking it and rendering them undocumented.
But Mr Trump has vowed a mass deportation campaign, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying Monday that "TPS was never designed to be permanent."
In stripping TPS, the Department of Homeland Security has said it was doing so because conditions have improved in those countries to the point where their nationals can return home safely.
