The former Tufts University graduate student detained by federal immigration authorities for co-writing an opinion piece related to Palestine has returned to Turkey and says she has reached a settlement with the government over longstanding legal issues.
“After 13 years of dedicated study, I am very proud to have completed my Ph.D. and to return home on my own timeline,” said Rümeysa Öztürk. “The time stolen from me by the U.S. government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for.”
Öztürk was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year near her home in Somerville, and was detained for more than six weeks in a Louisiana detention center. She was released by a federal judge.
An immigration judge terminated the removal proceedings against Öztürk earlier this year, finding that the government had no basis to deport her. The government appealed that decision soon after to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
This week, under the terms of the settlement agreement, the government and Öztürk jointly requested termination of proceedings in front of the Board.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it’s “glad” that Öztürk left the country of her own volition. “DHS is glad to see Ozturk self-deported from the U.S. Visas provided to foreign students to live, study, and work, in the United States are a privilege, not a right,” said the agency in a statement to GBH on Friday afternoon.
Mark Sauter, assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, wrote to Öztürk a March 30 letter that acknowledged she was in “lawful nonimmigrant status” when DHS terminated her record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS. That database, monitored by ICE, tracks students staying in the U.S. on certain visas. Without a SEVIS record, foreign students are unable to work in the U.S., which affected Öztürk’s studies after her release from detention.
“For all future immigration and other purposes, the Government shall interpret your SEVIS record as though the termination did not occur,” Sauter wrote of the cancellation of Öztürk’s student record that was successfully contested in district court. “The Government acknowledges that you were in lawful nonimmigrant status when DHS terminated your SEVIS record and remained in lawful nonimmigrant status at all times that you were in the United States. No immigration or other benefit should be denied, and no adverse action should be taken, on the basis of the March 2025 termination of your SEVIS record or associated data entries.”
The letter means that the government will consider the legal ramifications of its cancellation of Öztürk’s student records and visa to be void in the event she chooses to return to the U.S. in the future.
The Executive Office of Immigration Review — which oversees the nation’s immigration courts — didn’t comment.
Öztürk was detained for co-authoring an op-ed in The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, seeking the university stop funding groups in Israel that backed the invasion of Gaza.
“I am choosing to return home as planned to continue my career as a woman scholar without losing more time to the state-imposed violence and hostility I have experienced in the United States — all for nothing more than co-signing an op-ed advocating for Palestinian rights,” she said in a statement.
Jessie Rossman, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts, called arrest and detention of Rümeysa “unlawful and harmful.”
“Numerous federal court decisions have confirmed that the government had no basis for its actions aside from her constitutionally protected speech,” said Rossman. “Yet even as the government continued a relentless campaign against Rümeysa for nothing more than co-authoring an op-ed, she continued to navigate her studies and her advocacy with strength and grace, and she succeeded in her goal of obtaining her Ph.D. to work towards bettering the lives of children.”
Rossman said the decision to settle was partly based on how long litigation can take — often years.
“She has been studying for years so that she could contribute to the field of child development,” said Rossman. “And this settlement allows her to continue with that unimpeded. Rümeysa can now move forward in her career without devoting another ounce of energy to the Trump administration’s baseless campaign against her.”
Öztürk’s arrest and subsequent lawsuits
Öztürk was arrested in March 2025 while walking down the street talking to her mother on the phone, GBH News first reported.
A videotaken by her neighbor showed masked agents approaching her, seizing her phone, handcuffing her and putting her into an unmarked vehicle. Her family, friends and attorney didn’t know where she was for over 24 hours.
Her arrest came as the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza.
Soon after her arrest, Öztürk’s ZSEVIS record was terminated.
Öztürk had been a course instructor, teaching assistant and teaching fellow in the child study and human development department between 2021 to her arrest. She had received a master’s degree in developmental psychology from Columbia University’s Teachers College previously on a Fulbright scholarship. The Fulbright Scholarship is a prestigious U.S. Department of State exchange program for American and foreign scholars designed to foster cross-cultural dialogue, and expand professional development.
In a separate case,U.S. District Judge Denise Casper ruled in December that the Trump administration had to restore an essential government record for Öztürk that would let her do paid work as part of her graduate studies.
The government this week appealed the dismissal of Ozturk’s deportation case to the Board of Immigration Appeals. Immigration judge Roopal Patel had blocked Öztürk’s deportation in January. Patel found that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t proved that Öztürk should be removed from the U.S. Patel was recently fired by the Trump administration.
Ozturk’s attorney Mahsa Khanbabai first filed her federal habeas case in federal court in Boston the night of Ozturk’s detention. The case was eventually moved to Burlington, Vermont, where Öztürk was present when Khanbabai filed the case. Öztürk was released from a Louisiana immigrant detention center in May after a federal judge ordered her release. The judge said Öztürk raised serious concerns about her First Amendment and due process rights, as well as impacts to her health. The federal government appealed her release to the 2nd Circuit.
The federal case had been argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which had not yet made its decision. Öztürk’s attorneys told the Second Circuit that the government may try to detain Öztürk again if it appeals the immigration court’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which it recently did.
“We would anticipate that the BIA will accept that joint request,” Rossman told GBH. “Additionally, under the terms of the settlement agreement, both Dr. Öztürk’s SEVIS case — her student records case, and the habeas case — will be dismissed. And that has components at both the First Circuit, the Second Circuit, and district courts in Massachusetts and Vermont.”
Yet another lawsuit, filed by the American Association of University Professors — not by Öztürk herself — resulted in federal District Judge William Young finding Sec. Marco Rubio had revoked Öztürk’s visa for reasons protected by the First Amendment. He found Rubio’s decision was solely based on a March 2024 op-ed calling for divestment by Tufts from Israel.
