Judge considers whether Tufts student's case should be heard in Mass.

A federal judge in Boston heard arguments Thursday afternoon on whether a legal challenge to the detention of a Tufts University student should remain in Massachusetts.

Representing federal immigration officials, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter argued a Massachusetts federal court lacked jurisdiction to weigh in on Turkish national Rümeysa Öztürk’s case.

Prosecutors said the court should either dismiss the challenge to her arrest or transfer it to Louisiana, where Öztürk is being held and any appeals are likely to end up in a more conservative-leaning court.

At the heart of the jurisdiction question is the initial petition filed by one of Öztürk’s attorneys requesting a judge determine whether her arrest was unlawful and, if so, order her release. Generally, such challenges must be filed in the jurisdiction where a person is being held.

That petition came in at 10:02 p.m. on March 25, hours after plainclothes immigration officers arrested Öztürk in Somerville. At that point, she would have been in a moving vehicle in Vermont en route to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in St. Albans, according to the government’s timeline.

Öztürk’s attorneys argued it would have been impossible to file in the proper court given no one — not her lawyers, family, friends, or the Turkish consulate — knew where she was for nearly 24 hours after her arrest.

The government said ICE took Öztürk across three states over the course of several hours after detaining her, arriving at the St. Alban’s field office about half an hour after a federal judge ordered the agency not move her out of Massachusetts.

At 4 a.m. on March 26, ICE took Öztürk to Burlington International Airport and flew her to Alexandria, Louisiana, arriving at 2:35 p.m. She remains locked up at an all-female immigration jail in Basile. The private prison company GEO Group, which operates the facility, has a contract with ICE to detain its arrestees.

Her attorneys argued the case should remain in Massachusetts or else be transferred to Vermont.

“ICE’s deliberate and secretive hopscotch approach is an unlawful attempt to game the system,” Öztürk’s attorneys said in court filings.

Federal judge Denise Casper is expected to rule on the matter within the coming days.

Prior to the hearing, Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is representing Öztürk in the case, said the case “shocks the conscience.”

“Ms. Öztürk hasn't been charged with any crime at all by the government,” Rose said. “And yet she was seized off the street in Somerville, picked up on her way home and taken away secretly by the government 1,300 miles away from her community, from her legal counsel, from her friends, for virtually no reason.”

Several dozen people rallied outside the courthouse in support of Öztürk. Ximena Hasbach, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which advertised the rally on social media, called Öztürk’s detention “a clear attack on all our civil liberties.”

“ The entire community is behind her,” she said. “We are not gonna be scared into silence.”

Prosecutors in previous filings said that the plan had always been to move her out of state because, they claim, there was no available bedspace for women in New England immigration jails at the time she was arrested.

Attorneys for Öztürk said “there is no indication” ICE contacted any of the six detention facilities in the region that take in women. To support that claim, they filed a sworn statement from Maine-based immigration attorney Anna Welch, who said the Cumberland County Jail in Portland, Maine had at least 16 open beds at the time Öztürk was flown to Louisiana.

Öztürk has not been accused of any crime. Without providing evidence, federal officials have said she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

Her attorneys allege she was detained in retaliation for co-authoring an opinion piece published in the Tufts student newspaper a year ago. The op-ed criticized the university’s response to student efforts demanding the school disclose and sever its relationships with companies that held ties to Israel.

Following the hearing, Mahsa Khanbabai, one of the Tufts student’s attorneys, read out a statement Öztürk wrote that morning to reporters gathered outside the statehouse.

“Writing is one of the most peaceful ways of addressing systemic inequality,” Öztürk wrote. “Efforts to target me because of my op-ed in the Tufts Daily calling for the equal dignity and humanity of all people will not deter me from my commitment to advocate for the rights of youth and children.”

In a signed declaration Wednesday, Tufts President Sunil Kumar defended Öztürk's right to freedom of expression and said the op-ed was “not in violation of any Tufts policies.”

“For the record,” he added, “a search of The Tufts Daily will reveal op-eds on multiple sides of the issue with opinions that were shared just as strongly as the op-ed Ms. Öztürk co-authored.”

Tim Caron, an immigration attorney based in Marlborough, said there’s a strong argument for the case to be heard in Vermont. He pointed to a recent ruling in the case of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was similarly arrested by immigration officers in New York and later moved to Louisiana.

In that case, a federal judge transferred the matter to New Jersey, where Khalil was being held when his attorney filed a petition challenging his arrest. Öztürk’s attorneys also cited the ruling in their argument, though noted that Khalil was in a detention facility at the time the petition was filed, while Öztürk was still in transport. They argued that nuance helps their argument for the case to remain in Massachusetts.

But if a judge sides with the government in Öztürk’s case, it could drag on for several more weeks or months, Caron said.

“If there are removal proceedings brought against Ms. Öztürk, and there's no way, again, through the federal court to halt ICE in their tracks, I think the fact of the matter then is unfortunately that there would be the need to prepare for the removal proceedings,” Caron said, adding that those proceedings could take upwards of a year to conclude.

“There is a way for her to get released sooner,” Caron said. Her lawyers could try to persuade an immigration judge that she’s not a flight risk and request her release on bond.

But even if she were let go, he added “that would be with the downside of removal proceedings likely being imminent for her.”

“ While she'd be out of detention,” Caron said, “there'd be a good likelihood that, again, [the government would] be trying to say, ‘We've determined again that your visa should remain revoked and that you need to leave the country.’ ”