Free speech organization sues Trump administration over Tufts graduate student's detention
Several civil liberties non-profits jointly filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk in her ongoing lawsuit against the Trump administration.
The groups called the detention of Öztürk in Louisiana due to her contribution to a student newspaper op-ed "unlawful and un-American."
On Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), along with the National Coalition Against Censorship, PEN America and the Cato Institute, among others, filed an amici curiae brief to the United States District Court of Vermont.
"It is unthinkable that a person in a free society could be snatched from the street, imprisoned, and threatened with deportation for expressing an opinion the government dislikes," FIRE said in a statement.
The organization called out Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has defended Öztürk's detention at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), "not because the government claims she committed a crime or other deportable offense, but for the seemingly sole reason that her expression — an op-ed in a student newspaper — stirred the Trump administration to anger."
"Secretary Rubio claims (as do all censors) that this time is different, that university students' pro-Palestine (and, as administration officials allege, anti-Israel) views cannot be tolerated," FIRE stated. "... The First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law 'abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.'"
The lawsuit called her detention "unconstitutional retaliation" and viewpoint discrimination.
"The government has not claimed Ms. Öztürk ever engaged in terrorist activity," the lawsuit read. "It does not allege she ever provided material support for a terrorist organization... Instead, the government has targeted Ms. Öztürk because of her advocacy for the Palestinians in a newspaper. It characterizes her political opinion as 'glorifying' terrorists and arrested and detained her because of it."
Among citations referring to previous legal battles over First Amendment rights, FIRE also cited Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address in 1801 in Öztürk's defense.
"[Jefferson] proclaimed, 'If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated and where reason is left free to combat it,'" the lawsuit read.
Also on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit paused a court order from a Vermont District Court judge requiring Öztürk to return to Vermont from Louisiana pending a hearing next week. The judge had ordered that she return to Vermont by May 1 to facilitate a hearing on her petition challenging her detention.
Öztürk, a 30-year-old Turkish national, has been in federal custody since March 25, when plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested her on the street and whisked her away to New Hampshire, then Vermont, and finally Louisiana. She has yet to be charged with a crime.
Öztürk's lawyers claim the Trump administration revoked her student visa without warning because she co-authored a pro-Palestinian op-ed in Tufts' student newspaper last year. Federal officials say she supports Hamas, but have not provided specific evidence to support the claim.
Öztürk has been held in a 14-person cell with two dozen other women since being moved to Louisiana. She has had multiple asthma attacks during her detention , according to her court filings.
Read the original article on MassLive .
