MASSACHUSETTS — Rümeysa Öztürk reached a settlement with the U.S. government this month that dismissed her deportation proceedings and allowed her to return to Turkey, where she traveled after the agreement was reached. Öztürk, who completed her doctorate in the U.S., had been detained last year by immigration agents in Massachusetts.

Under the settlement, both parties requested that her immigration case be dismissed, and the agreement permitted her to return to Turkey without interference by the administration. The settlement also reinstated her international student status in the SEVIS system.

"After 13 years of dedicated study, I am very proud to have completed my PhD and to return home on my own timeline," Öztürk said. "The time stolen from me by the US government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for."

In March 2024, Öztürk and three others co-wrote an op-ed for the Tufts Daily calling for the university to acknowledge what they termed a genocide of Palestinians. The newly installed second Trump administration accused her of antisemitism and revoked her visa using the op-ed as a pretext. The administration targeted her for pro-Palestinian speech and activism during protests against Israel's war in Gaza, which followed the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated Öztürk's visa along with those of other students involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. The State Department used a little-used authority to rescind the visas and accused some visa holders of supporting Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization based in Gaza, without providing evidence. According to court filings, internal government records obtained in a separate lawsuit against Rubio showed that the government had no evidence outside of the college newspaper op-ed to revoke her visa and deport her.

Öztürk was arrested in March 2025 by masked plainclothes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a video of the arrest circulated widely online. ICE took her to a detention center in Louisiana and placed her in deportation proceedings, leading to a lengthy series of court battles.

An immigration judge earlier this year terminated her case, finding that the government had no grounds to deport her. Immigration Judge Roopal Patel rejected the government's argument that expressing views shared by millions of Americans disturbed by the carnage in Gaza equated to supporting terrorism and antisemitism. The Trump administration originally appealed the decision before the settlement was reached.

"Dr Öztürk is an academic and scholar. The government's unlawful actions against her forced her into the spotlight," said Jessie Rossman, legal director at the ACLU of Massachusetts. "But in numerous publications over the past year, Dr Öztürk used this platform and her own words to educate the public about what she has experienced, to shine a light on what she witnessed other women in for-profit ICE prisons experience, and to advocate for global human rights with a focus on children."