MASSACHUSETTS — Rumeysa Ozturk announced through the American Civil Liberties Union that she will return to Turkiye after a nearly yearlong legal battle with the Trump administration. Her legal team reached a settlement to dismiss the deportation effort, and the administration acknowledged that Ozturk had been in the United States legally throughout her stay.

Under the settlement, Ozturk was allowed to depart for Turkiye without interference from the Department of Homeland Security. She received her PhD in child study and human development in February 2026 from Tufts University, where she had been a doctoral student.

"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," Ozturk said. In her departure announcement, she said that hosting international scholars is a privilege.

Ozturk was arrested on March 25, 2025. Surveillance video of the arrest went viral in late March, showing six plain-clothed immigration officers surrounding her on the street outside her Massachusetts apartment as she left to break her Ramadan fast. In the video, the first officer grabbed Ozturk by the hands, prompting her to cry out. She has no criminal record.

After her arrest, Ozturk was transported to New Hampshire, then to Vermont, where she spent the night in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. The following morning, she was flown to Louisiana, where she was held for 45 days. In a Vanity Fair article, she said the detention center was overcrowded, with insufficient food, lack of medical care, and 24-hour lights that made sleep difficult. She said she suffered asthma attacks that worsened in the hot, humid Louisiana air.

The Department of Homeland Security accused Ozturk of having engaged in activities in support of Hamas. There is no evidence supporting that assertion. Before her arrest, Ozturk had co-signed an opinion column in The Tufts Daily with three other students calling on the university's president to acknowledge the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Her lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition in a Vermont federal court arguing that her detention was unlawful. Ozturk was released from detention on May 9, 2025. In February 2026, an immigration judge dismissed the deportation proceedings against her, and the Trump administration appealed that dismissal before the settlement was reached.

Ozturk was part of the Trump administration's first wave of deportations of pro-Palestinian scholars. On March 8, 2025, the administration deported Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil. On January 29, nine days after being sworn in for a second term, Donald Trump issued an executive order stating he would use "all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account" those he considered anti-Semitic.

The Trump administration cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as authorizing removal of legal immigration documents from foreign nationals if the secretary of state deems them to cause potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. The scope of that power continues to be contested in court.