Appeals Court Rules Tufts University Student Arrested by ICE Must Be Returned to Vermont

A federal appeals court ruled on May 7 that a Tufts University student must be returned to Vermont after she had been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to Louisiana. The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled unanimously to deny the government’s appeal of a lower-court order, and they have directed that the student, Rumeysa Ozturk, be sent back to Vermont by May 14. “The District of Vermont is likely the proper venue to adjudicate Ozturk’s habeas petition because, at the time she filed, she was physically in Vermont,” the judges said in their written opinion....