A federal government lawyer and an appeals judge put themselves in an exchanged achadage on Tuesday when the lawyer could not answer if the student of the University arrested, Rumeysa Öztürk, freedom of expression is protected.
Öztürk, who is from Türkiye, was arrested by immigration authorities in the streets of a suburb of Boston on March 25.
The Trump administration revoked the Öztürk student visa at the end of March based on an evaluation of the National Security Department and Customs Immigration and Control that she “had been involved in associations that ‘can undermine the foreign policy of the United States by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization.’ ‘
Which included, according to a memorandum of the State Department, co -authorship of an opinion article “that found a common cause with an organization that was then temporarily prohibited in the campus, the approved revocation of the Office of Consular Affairs, effectively immediately.”
Last year, Öztürk wrote an opinion article in his student newspaper that criticized Tufts response to the war in Gaza.
During Tuesday’s hearing at the Court of Appeals of 2nd Circuit in New York City, Judge Barrington Parker Jr. asked the government if they believed that Öztürk and Mahdawi’s speech was protected.
The lawyer of the Justice Drew Ensign said: “His honor, we have not taken a position on that.”
“Help my thought,” Parker replied. “Take a position.”
Ensign replied: “I don’t have the authority to make those decisions. At this time it is not a live problem.”
The viral video of the Öztürk arrest shows the DHS officers and the immigration authorities that surround it on a sidewalk, grabbing her wrists and taking her from the street to a nearby SUV while shouting.
He has been arrested in a detention center in Louisiana, thousands of miles where he lives and was arrested, while fighting deportation.
His lawyers have argued that the case should be transferred to Vermont, because it was the last place that was taken before being transferred to Louisiana. The American district judge William Sessions ordered that Öztürk was transferred to Vermont earlier this month.
While he is in detention, Öztürk has suffered asthma attacks.
“The bedrooms in detention are very full, and the other women reported having seen mice in bedroom rooms,” he wrote in a judicial presentation on Monday. “In addition, the air conditioning is running most of the day, and I don’t have immediate access to fresh air.”
Simultaneously, on Tuesday, the second circuit heard arguments about whether they should grant or deny the order of another federal judge to free the student of Columbia Mohsen Mahdawi.
Mahdawi, a 34 -year -old green card holder who was born and grew up in a foil in the West Bank, was arrested by DHS agents on April 14 while interviewed for his naturalization in a Vermont immigration office. He was released from the prison on bail last week.
Ensign argued that Mahdawi should not remain free because he would interfere with the government’s ability to carry out his elimination and lead to “technical challenges” and “operating costs” for the government.
Naz Ahmad, a Mahdawi lawyer, joked only one day after being released, Mahdawi appeared remotely using Webex. Ahmad also argued that if Mahdawi was ordered to be arrested again, he would relax his freedom of expression.
“Freedom is the norm, and the government wants to interrupt that freedom,” said Ahmad.
Mahdawi was a key organizer of Pro-Palestinian protests in Columbia last year. The Ivy League school became the epicenter of similar manifestations on university campuses throughout the country and caused the particular anger of Republicans in Capitol Hill.
The Trump administration justified its arrest, arguing that “its presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse consequences of foreign policy and compromise a convincing foreign policy interest,” according to the DHS notice so that Mahdawi appears.
Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford, of the Federal District Court in Vermont, ordered the release of Mahdawi on bail last week, comparing today’s political climate with the second red scare of the 1950s.
“This is not the first time that the nation has seen a chilling action of the government aimed at closing the debate,” said Crawford.
Going to journalists outside the court last week after its launch, Mahdawi gave a challenging tone.
“I say it clearly and strongly to President Trump and his cabinet: I’m not afraid of you,” he said
