Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student whose detention in the United States attracted international attention, has returned to Turkey after completing her studies, according to a statement released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Öztürk, who was pursuing a doctorate at Tufts University near Boston, was detained by US immigration agents in March 2025 after co-authoring a campus newspaper opinion piece calling on the university to respond to student demands over Gaza.
Her arrest became a symbol of the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism on US campuses.
Video showing masked federal agents seizing Öztürk on the street as she was heading to meet friends to break her Ramadan fast triggered outrage among civil rights advocates and immigrant rights groups.
“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 in the statement.
She said she was leaving the United States after months of legal and personal strain caused by what she described as retaliation for protected speech.
“I am choosing to return home as planned to continue my career as a woman scholar without losing more time to the state-imposed violence and hostility I have experienced in the United States, all for nothing more than co-signing an op-ed advocating for Palestinian rights,” she said.
Öztürk was held for six weeks in a detention center in Louisiana after being transferred from the Boston area.
Her lawyers challenged the legality of both her arrest and her detention, arguing that US authorities targeted her over constitutionally protected expression rather than any criminal conduct.
A federal court later ordered her release, and several court rulings found serious constitutional concerns in the government’s handling of the case.
Although the US government continued to pursue her removal after she was freed, the deportation case was terminated this week after she agreed to leave the country, the ACLU said.
Jessie Rossman, legal director of the Massachusetts ACLU, said the government had no lawful basis to detain Öztürk.
“The government’s arrest and detention of Rümeysa was unlawful and harmful, as numerous federal court decisions have confirmed that the government had no basis for its actions aside from her constitutionally protected speech,” Rossman said.
The Trump administration had targeted elite US universities that became centers of student protest over Israel’s actions in Gaza, seeking to punish or deport foreign students linked to the demonstrations.
Öztürk’s case drew attention in Turkey and the United States, with critics saying it showed how immigration enforcement was used to suppress speech in support of Palestinian rights.
© Agence France-Presse