An immigration judge found that the Department of Homeland Security failed to prove that a Tufts University student should be deported from the United States, attorneys say.

US judge blocks deportation Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student in Türkiye, was arrested last year during a crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists, according to her lawyer.

Ozturk’s attorneys detailed the decision in a letter filed Monday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

They said an immigration judge concluded on Jan. 29 that the Department of Homeland Security had failed to meet its burden of proving she could be deported and terminated proceedings against her.

Ozturk is a doctoral student studying children’s relationship with social media arrested He was on the streets last March when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian propaganda.

Video shows masked agents handcuffing her and putting her into an unmarked vehicle.

The only basis authorities used for revoking her visa was an editorial she co-wrote in the Tufts student newspaper a year ago criticizing her university’s response to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

The petition to free her was first filed in federal court in Boston, home of Tufts University, and then moved to Burlington, Vermont. Last May, a federal judge Already ordered She was immediately released after it was found that she had made substantive allegations that her detention constituted unlawful retaliation and violated her right to freedom of expression.

Ozturk spent 45 days in a detention center in southern Louisiana and has since returned to the Tufts University campus.

The federal government appealed her release to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

However, the January 29 ruling temporarily ended these proceedings.

Ozturk said it’s heartening to know that justice can be served.

“Today, I breathe a sigh of relief because I know that despite the flaws in the justice system, my case may bring hope to those who have also been wronged by the United States government,” she said in a statement from her attorneys.

Mahsa Khanbabai, an immigration attorney in Ozturk, said the decision was made by Boston Immigration Judge Roopal Patel.

Patel’s decision itself is not public and can be challenged by the Trump administration to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Kambabhai welcomed Patel’s decision while slamming what she said was the Trump administration’s weaponization of the U.S. immigration system to target “vital members of our society.”

“It manipulates immigration laws to silence those who advocate for Palestinian human rights and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” she said. “With this ruling, Judge Patel has delivered justice to Rumesa; now, I hope other immigration judges will follow her lead and refuse to rubber-stamp the president’s brutal deportation agenda.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement that Judge Patel’s decision reflected “judicial activism.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “has made clear that anyone who thinks they can come to the United States and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate anti-American, anti-Semitic violence and terrorism – please think again.”

Video of Ozturk’s arrest in the Boston suburb of Somerville was widely shared, making her case one of the most high-profile examples of the Trump administration’s efforts to expel non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian views.

Separately, last month a federal judge in Boston rule Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have adopted illegal policies of detaining and deporting scholars like Ozturk, which has chilled the free speech of non-citizen scholars at universities.

The Justice Department appealed the decision on Monday.