The case to free a Tufts PhD student and vocally pro-Palestine Turkish national after she was detained last week took a step forward in court Thursday, with the defense and government contesting

Tufts doctoral student and research assistant was picked up on the street close to her home by masked federal agents in plain clothes

Öztürk was detained at about 5:15 p.m. According to the timeline provided by the government, she left Somerville in ICE custody at 5:49pm, stopped in Methuen and departed at 6:36 p.m. for Lebanon, New Hampshire. Öztürk left Lebanon for the ICE field Office in St. Albans, Vermont, arriving at 10:28 p.m.

A Tufts University doctoral student from Turkiye who was detained by immigration authorities had been moved to Vermont by the time a federal judge ordered authorities to keep her in Massachusetts, lawyers for the US Government said.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student in child psychology at Tufts University in Medford, was standing alone on a sidewalk last Tuesday when she was

ICE agents took Turkish Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk into custody near Tufts, revoked her visa and moved her to a detention center in Louisiana last week.

The U.S. government has been using its immigration enforcement powers since President Trump took office to crack down on international students and scholars who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations or criticized Israel over its military action in Gaza.