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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 Günaydın 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. 

Günaydın 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 Günaydın should be deported because of a June 2023 drunk driving arrest. Günaydın, 28, pleaded guilty to gross misdemeanor DWI in March 2024.

In an order last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko directed the government to explain why Günaydın should remain in custody.

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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 Günaydın. Siekert also notes that Günaydın 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, Günaydın’s attorney, maintains that ICE’s initial arrest of her client was illegal and that Günaydın wasn’t given due process. 

Brown argues that a report on Günaydın’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 her initial lawsuit, Brown argued that the visa revocation was invalid in part because agents arrested Günaydın 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. Günaydın after his arrest, while he remains in custody,” Brown writes in her response Monday.

Brown argues that Günaydın should be released from jail immediately and his student status be reinstated. 

According to court documents, Günaydın’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.

Sarah Thamer

Author

Matt Sepic

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.


Nicole Neri for MPR News

A sign reads Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in front of a building

Trump administration: U of M student in ICE custody should remain jailed

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