Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student who was detained by US immigration authorities last month, says she has had multiple asthma attacks since she was arrested and detained and has had difficulty getting medical attention.
Öztürk, 30, was detained by masked, plainclothes officers as she walked in a Boston-area suburb on 25 March. A judge ordered that the Turkish national and doctoral student who was in the US on an F-1 student visa cannot be deported without a court order. But she remains detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile.
On Thursday, Öztürk’s attorneys asked the federal court in Vermont to release her – or to move her from Louisiana to Vermont – while her case is heard.
In a declaration filed by her lawyers, she said that while at the Louisiana facility, she faced delays getting care for an asthma attack and was initially refused access to fresh air. When she was eventually taken to the medical center, she says a nurse told her to take off her hijab. When Öztürk refused, she said, the nurse ripped off her hijab without permission.