Overview
- Öztürk, who completed her Ph.D. in February, disclosed Friday that she reached a settlement with the government and has returned to Turkey.
- Her lawyers say both sides will ask courts and immigration authorities to dismiss the remaining cases, and the government acknowledged she was in lawful status while in the U.S.
- ICE agents arrested her in March 2025 after the State Department revoked her student visa citing an op‑ed she co‑authored, and she spent about six weeks in a Louisiana detention center before a judge ordered her release.
- An immigration judge ended her deportation case in January for lack of evidence, the government appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and last week the administration fired that judge as DOJ issued a general statement about policing judicial bias.
- The ACLU frames the outcome as a rebuke of efforts to target pro‑Palestinian campus speech, while DHS said it was glad she self‑deported and other student removal cases remain active.