NEW YORK — The ACLU is challenging the federal government over what it calls blatant violations of the First Amendment, after two students were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year in retaliation for their speech supporting Palestinian rights.
On Sept. 30, 2025, the ACLU published an article titled “Appeals Court Hears Arguments on Behalf of Mohsen Mahdawi, Rümeysa Öztürk,” highlighting the cases of two students who say ICE targeted them for exercising their right to free expression.
According to the ACLU, in both cases the government argues that the Immigration and Nationality Act strips district courts of jurisdiction over habeas claims challenging unconstitutional detentions. The ACLU states that “noncitizens can ask a federal district court to intervene if they are being detained to punish and censor their speech.”
Rümeysa Öztürk, one of the students highlighted in the ACLU article, argues that “writing is the heart of freedom of expression.” She said, “Unbelievably, it was my writing—a single opinion piece, published in our student newspaper—that led to my arrest and ultimately landed me in a damp, crowded, and inhumane ICE for-profit prison for 45 days this spring.” Despite her experience, Öztürk told the ACLU that she remains hopeful that the world can become a gentler and more peaceful place. She hopes others who hear her story know that society has the power to make it so.
“Doing so starts with speaking up about injustice when we see it,” Öztürk said. “From ICE prisons where children are kept to children of war and conflict, oppression is global and connected, and so our response and compassion must be equally universal.” As her case moves forward, Öztürk expressed gratitude for the outpouring of support. She told the ACLU that she expects to see the basic principles of democracy prevail.
According to the ACLU, in Öztürk v. Hyde, the court heard arguments addressing the government’s appeal of an order that would have transferred Öztürk from Louisiana to Vermont, had she not been released on bail on May 9.
In Mahdawi v. Trump, the court heard arguments addressing the government’s appeal of Mahdawi’s release on bail on April 30.
“I came to this country after living under Israeli apartheid, where freedom was something I had never known,” Mahdawi said.
He told the ACLU that it was in America where he discovered dignity and liberty, values he says shaped his faith in the nation’s promise. “That is why being imprisoned on the very day I sought citizenship was not only devastating but also a profound betrayal of the principles on which this country was founded,” Mahdawi said.
The ACLU reports that Mahdawi was jailed for speaking out for humanity and against the genocide of his people in Palestine.
He said his case stands at the intersection of Palestinian freedom and the future of American democracy. “It is about more than my own liberty; it is about whether everyone’s First Amendment rights will be upheld and whether this nation will remain true to its Constitution, even when speech challenges power, even when it demands justice for Palestinians living under genocide and oppression,” Mahdawi told the ACLU.
Mahdawi argues that his case has become a test for the United States. He questions whether America will honor its founding values or silence those who dare to speak for humanity.
Earlier this year, on March 25, Öztürk, a Ph.D. student at Tufts University studying child development, was detained by plainclothes ICE agents in Somerville, Massachusetts, in retaliation for an op-ed she co-signed in the Tufts Daily.
According to the ACLU, her legal team filed a petition and complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging her detention and arguing that it violated the First and Fifth Amendments.
ICE transferred Öztürk from Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana without notifying the court or her counsel. The ACLU reports that her whereabouts were unknown for 24 hours following her arrest. On May 9, she returned to Massachusetts after her release on bail. Öztürk spent six weeks in a Louisiana ICE detention facility “with hardly any access to fresh air and in conditions that doctors say risked exacerbating her asthma attacks,” the ACLU said.
Esha Bhandari, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, who argued on behalf of Öztürk, said that “the First Amendment does not allow the government to weaponize immigration detention as a tool to censor speech.” She explained that “habeas review must be available to someone like Ms. Öztürk, who was arrested and whisked away to a cramped detention facility halfway across the country because she wrote an opinion piece in a newspaper. The government’s arguments, if adopted, would give it unprecedented power to censor lawful speech in America.”
In its article, the ACLU noted that Mahdawi has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for a decade and is a long-time Vermont resident. He is currently a graduate student at Columbia University. However, on April 14, ICE detained Mahdawi directly after his naturalization interview at an immigration field office, allegedly in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights as an undergraduate.
The ACLU explained that after apprehending him, ICE attempted to put him on a plane to Louisiana, but a temporary restraining order compelled the government to keep him in Vermont. He was later released on bail in late April.
Michael Tan, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued on behalf of Mahdawi, said that “no one, citizen or noncitizen, should be locked up for their political views, much less denied the opportunity to challenge their imprisonment in court.” He called the government’s position absurd and dangerous, and told the ACLU that he and his team will keep fighting until their client’s rights are vindicated.
Both Öztürk’s and Mahdawi’s cases were heard separately by Judges Debra Ann Livingston, William J. Nardini, and Steven J. Menashi.
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