The Trump administration says a University of Minnesota graduate student from Turkey should remain jailed while the Department of Homeland Security moves forward with removal proceedings. That’s according to court documents filed just ahead of a deadline late Friday.
Doğukan Günaydin sued the federal government after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him outside his St. Paul home on March 27, and he’s been detained in the Sherburne County Jail since then.
Günaydin argues in the lawsuit that ICE agents initially did not inform him, either verbally or in writing, of the charges against him.
DHS argues that Günaydin should be deported because of a June 2023 drunk driving arrest. Günaydin, 28, pleaded guilty to gross misdemeanor DWI in March 2024.
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In an order last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko directed the government to explain why Günaydin should remain in custody.
In response, Assistant U.S. Attorney Friedrich Siekert argued that U.S. district court “does not have jurisdiction” to evaluate ICE’s decisions to start removal proceedings or detain Günaydin. Siekert also notes that Günaydin is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge on Tuesday.
“Doğukan has a hearing in immigration court … that will present him with the first opportunity to make substantive arguments regarding his removability as well as his detention,” reads the Administration’s response. “This Court should allow those proceedings to play out.”
In her own response to the government’s arguments, Hannah Brown, Günaydin’s attorney, maintains that ICE’s initial arrest of her client was illegal and that Günaydin wasn’t given due process.
Brown argues that a report on Günaydin’s arrest written by ICE Special Agent David Wheratt is “inadmissible hearsay” because he has not been subject to cross-examination. Brown also writes that “Misdemeanor non-violent offenses, such as Mr. Günaydin’s criminal conviction,” do not meet the legal threshold for the termination of a student visa.
In this 2019 photo, the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building is shown. The Ft. Snelling Immigration Court is located inside.
Jim Mone | AP file
In her initial lawsuit, Brown argued that the visa revocation was invalid in part because agents arrested Günaydin seven hours before DHS terminated his permission to remain in the United States.
[The government is] “moving the target and cannot continue to be afforded the time to backtrack, change the record, and come up with justification for detaining Mr. Günaydin after his arrest, while he remains in custody,” Brown writes in her response Monday.
Brown argues that Günaydin should be released from jail immediately and his student status be reinstated.
According to court documents, Günaydin’s most recent entry to the U.S. was on January 13, 2022. He entered the U.S. on an F-1 student, nonimmigrant visa.
