{"id":498,"date":"2025-05-06T16:26:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/?p=498"},"modified":"2025-05-06T19:36:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T19:36:55","slug":"appeals-court-grapples-with-efforts-to-deport-international-students-rumeysa-ozturk-mohsen-mahdawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/2025\/05\/06\/appeals-court-grapples-with-efforts-to-deport-international-students-rumeysa-ozturk-mohsen-mahdawi\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court grapples with efforts to deport international students R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, Mohsen Mahdawi"},"content":{"rendered":"
A federal appeals court on Tuesday grappled with the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to deport two international students over their participation in pro-Palestinian campus activism.<\/p>\n
The challenges mounted by R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, a Tufts University student arrested over an op-ed she co-authored, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student detained at his naturalization interview, have become\u00a0flashpoints in the administration\u2019s sweeping crackdown on foreign students<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrestled with the government\u2019s bid to block\u00a0orders releasing Mahdawi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0returning \u00d6zt\u00fcrk from Louisiana to Vermont<\/a>\u00a0as their legal challenges proceed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s efforts largely rest on thorny jurisdictional issues that assert the federal courts had no authority to intervene. When the appeals panel attempted to wade into the First Amendment issues at the heart of the challenges, Deputy Attorney General Drew Ensign sidestepped the questions. <\/p>\n \u201cDoes the government contest that the speech in both cases was protected speech?\u201d asked U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr., an appointee of former President George W. Bush. <\/p>\n \u201cYour Honor, we haven\u2019t \u2014 we have not taken a position on that,\u201d Ensign responded. \u201cOur position is that the jurisdictional bars prevent adjudication of that.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cHelp my thinking along: Take a position,\u201d Parker pressed. <\/p>\n Ensign declined again, telling the judge, \u201cI don\u2019t have authority to take a position on that right now.\u201d <\/p>\n Since taking office, the Trump administration has taken major efforts to end legal status for international students who have voiced support for the pro-Palestinian movement. It began with detaining Mahmoud Khalil, a leader in the demonstrations at Columbia University.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weeks later, \u00d6zt\u00fcrk entered the national spotlight when plainclothes officers arrested her near her Somerville, Mass., residence on March 25. \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, a Turkish national, had co-authored an op-ed in her student newspaper criticizing her university\u2019s response to the war in Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n Within hours, authorities transported her to Vermont, and then Louisiana. The government appealed after a federal judge ruled that she must be physically returned to Vermont until her legal challenge is resolved.<\/p>\n The appeals panel on Tuesday questioned in particular the government\u2019s position that\u00a0\u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s attorneys\u00a0needed to name as a defendant the warden of the Vermont detention facility, since that\u2019s where \u00d6zt\u00fcrk was headed when the legal challenge was filed.\u00a0Because they didn\u2019t, the courts must toss the challenge, the government argues.<\/p>\n Esha Bhandari, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, called that a \u201cbreathtaking position,\u201d stressing the group had no way to know\u00a0where their client was when they rushed to court upon her arrest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of the government’s own decision not to provide that information to you, they can essentially suspend the writ for as long as they choose, and until they decide that they can let you know who the custodian is,\u201d Bhandari warned. <\/p>\n Parker and U.S. Circuit Judge Susan Carney both raised concerns about\u00a0what legal avenue would be available if the government had detained the wrong person, mistakenly believing it was \u00d6zt\u00fcrk.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDoesn’t it give you pause about your arguments about the technicalities of the naming of the custodian?\u201d asked Carney, an appointee of former President Obama. <\/p>\n But Ensign, who spearheads the government\u2019s legal defense in\u00a0many of its high-profile immigration disputes, pushed back on the concerns and stressed \u00d6zt\u00fcrk\u2019s case raised \u201cunique\u201d facts.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat would have to be raised in the immigration court,\u201d Ensign said. \u201cAnd I think that could, a mistaken identity one, could probably be raised and adjudicated rather quickly.\u201d <\/p>\n Unlike \u00d6zt\u00fcrk, who remains in immigration custody, Mahdawi was released last week.<\/p>\n A green card holder and leader in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last year, he was arrested April 14 during his naturalization interview, a final step in the process for him to gain U.S. citizenship. <\/p>\n The Trump administration in its bid to deport him has stressed that a gun shop owner in 2015 told police that Mahdawi visited his store and indicated he used \u201cused to build modified 9 mm submachine guns to kill Jews while he was in Palestine.\u201d Mahdawi acknowledges visiting the store but denies any such discussion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn our society, liberty is the norm. Respondents seek to upset that norm for Mr. Mahdawi,\u201d said Naz Ahmad, an attorney at Main Street Legal Services, which represents him. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal appeals court on Tuesday grappled with the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to deport two international students over their participation in pro-Palestinian campus activism. The challenges mounted by R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk,<\/p>\n