On March 25, 2025, 30-year-old Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was effectively kidnapped by masked, plainclothes police officers on a street in a suburb section of Boston, Massachusetts and quickly transported to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana. The heavy-handed seizure and detention of the Turkish native, a Fulbright scholar and doctoral student in the U.S. on a lawfully issued F-1 student visa, triggered immediate national and international outrage and protests.
On March 30, 2025, at the request of Ozturk’s legal counsel, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper issued an order to U.S. immigration authorities that Ozturk “shall not be removed from the United States until further order from this court.” There has been no evidence to support any of the claims made by the Trump administration in their efforts to revoke her student VISA.
Ozturk is the latest of several high-profile foreign nationals seized by immigration authorities because they either participated in pro-Palestinian protests at universities last fall or expressed written opinions in support of innocent Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli military forces. One of those is a pro-Palestinian Columbia University student named Mahmoud Khalil who was arrested in early March by immigration authorities for his pro-Palestinian movement efforts at the university last fall. A New York federal judge has also blocked his removal from the country until the court determines what due process rights he is entitled to under his visa status.
The Trump administration—through its State Department and Homeland Security Department—has attempted to justify these arbitrary deportation proceedings by accusing these selectively chosen foreign nationals of engaging in pro-Hamas activities with protests, published written opinions, or some other form of material support to the designated terrorist organization.
The Trump administration, with all its nonsensical legal blather about pro-Hamas support, deliberately equates pro-Palestinian support with pro-Hamas support.
The Palestinian people are neither terrorists nor designated terrorist organizations. More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed with more than 100,000 seriously injured since October 7, 2023. Virtually all of the Palestinians were innocent civilians who never raised a hand against Israelis as the government methodically decimated the Gaza Strip—the same strip Trump now wants to turn into a seaside resort.
In short, “pro-Palestinian support” is support for the innocent Palestinian civilians being methodically slaughtered by the Netanyahu war machine, not pro-Hamas terror support. That shouldn’t be too hard to differentiate unless you are Trump’s attorney general or FBI director.
There are essentially two kinds of visas for foreign nationals in the United States: 1) the immigration visa that is issued to foreign nationals who plan to live permanently in the U.S. and which are family-sponsored, employment-based, or diversity visas; and 2) the nonimmigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to temporally stay in the U.S. such as tourist/business (B-1/B-2), student (F-1), or temporary worker (H-2B).
So what due process rights do these foreign nationals (or “lawful aliens” as referred to in hundreds of court decisions) have once the government decides to undertake deportation proceedings against them?
There are five core constitutional rights, and an assortment of collateral rights tied to them that federal courts have extended to foreign nationals facing deportation for any reason. These five rights are:
- Right to a pre-deportation hearing: The foreign national must be given a pre-hearing notice and has the right to plead their case in an immigration court. The government is required to prove by “clear and convincing evidence” the reasons for the deportation request before an impartial immigration judge.
- Protection against arbitrary detention: Foreign nationals have a right not only to request the reasons for their detention but also to request a bond while their case works through the immigration court system.
- Right to counsel: Foreign nationals facing deportation proceedings in immigration court have a right to retain counsel, but neither the court nor the government has any obligation to appoint counsel.
- Right to be from unlawful search and seizure: Immigration officials cannot enter a foreign national’s place of residence without a judicial warrant, although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can do so under certain circumstances with an administrative warrant.
- Right to remain silent: Foreign nationals are not required to discuss their immigration status or disclose personal information to law enforcement or ICE agents unless required to do so by law.
Beyond these constitutional rights, foreign nationals also enjoy several constitutional protections while residing in this country:
- Free Speech Clause under the First Amendment
- Free Exercise Clause under the First Amendment
Under these two fundamental First Amendment protections, foreign nationals enjoy the right to:
- Freedom of Religion: right to attend preferred religious services;
- Freedom of Speech: right to be critical of U.S. foreign policy;
- Freedom of the Press: right to the same journalism rights as an American journalist;
- Freedom of Assembly: right to participate in public protests;
- Freedom to Petition: right to petition the government to either extend or ease temporary immigration status.
None of these rights and/or protections were afforded to Rumeysa Ozturk or Mahmoud Khalil before U.S. immigration authorities effectively kidnapped them; nor did either of them violate any U.S. law or engage in any behavior that violated the terms of their respective visas. Their unlawful seizures and detentions exemplify just how lawless, authoritarian, and corrupt the Trump administration has proven itself to be.
On April 29, 2025, Rumeysa Ozturk’s return to federal court in Vermont was delayed until the U.S. Court of Appeals for Second Circuit could hear the government’s emergency appeal that her case be moved to Louisiana, where she is being detained in immigration custody so her case would be handled administratively. After six weeks in detention, a federal judge ruled that Ozturk be returned to Boston and released on her recognizance pending the court’s decision on her claim that she was illegally detained, following the op-ed she wrote.
On April 30, 2025, a federal district court judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil could pursue a federal case contesting his deportation on the ground that he was targeted and detained for deportation because of his political views. Khalil remains detained in ICE custody and recently wrote an opinion piece to his newborn son, who was born while he was in detention, in which he said, “I am sorry that I was not there to hold your mother’s hand or to recite the adhan, or call to prayer, in your ear. But my absence is not unique. Like other Palestinian fathers, I was separated from you by racist regimes and distant prisons. In Palestine, this pain is part of daily life…”
