Immigration officials arrested a University of Minnesota student on March 27 because of his drunk driving arrest in 2023, federal officials said in a new court filing.
Doğukan Günaydın, an international student from Turkey, was arrested by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers near his home in St. Paul as he was on his way to class, according to a lawsuit he filed last week. He was studying for a STEM MBA at the Carlson School of Management.
According to Günaydın’s lawsuit: ICE did not provide an explanation for why he was arrested. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) terminated his legal student status seven hours after ICE took him into custody.
Günaydın’s lawsuit is filed against several federal officials, including President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A judge ordered federal officials to explain why Günaydın was arrested, detained and placed into deportation proceedings.
According to a new filing from the United States Attorney’s Office responding to the judge’s order: ICE officers who arrested Günaydın informed him that his visa was revoked because of his DWI conviction. He was served an arrest warrant when he arrived at the ICE office in Fort Snelling, and ICE officials filed a document on April 2 to include new evidence for his deportation, noting that his visa was revoked on March 23 by John Armstrong, a senior bureau official at the Bureau of Consular Affairs.
The federal government also included a document with Armstrong’s signature approving the visa revocation as an exhibit with its court filing.
“We understand that DHS/ICE intends to immediately pursue removal of GUNAYDIN, and due to the ongoing ICE operational security, this revocation will therefore be silent; the Department of State will not notify the subject of revocation,” read the document with Armstrong’s signature.
The government argued in its filing that the judge in Günaydın’s lawsuit has no authority to review or take action against ICE’s decision on deportation proceedings. The court should allow Günaydın’s removal proceedings to “play out,” because he can request for other forms of relief and argue against deportation in immigration court, said the department’s filing.
Günaydın is scheduled to make his first appearance in immigration court on April 8.
Günaydın’s lawsuit acknowledged that he pleaded guilty in 2024 to drunk driving, but said that is not a reason to cancel his legal student status.
“Mr. Günaydın has committed no crime that is cause for termination of his Student Status or that renders him deportable,” Günaydın’s lawyer, Hannah Brown, said in the lawsuit.
Brown filed a new court filing Monday responding to the government’s explanation. She argued that revoking Günaydın’s visa is not a basis for terminating his legal student status because “a nonimmigrant visa controls a noncitizen’s admission into the United States, not their continued stay.”
Either a Designated School Official (DSO) or DHS may terminate an international student’s student status if, for example, the student is working without authorization, Brown wrote in the lawsuit. She pointed to the government’s official list of reasons for terminating student status.
Günaydın’s lawsuit asks a judge to order his release from jail and to reinstate his legal student status.
Günaydın’s lawsuit is filed in federal court while his deportation case is being heard separately in immigration court, which creates complicated jurisdiction issues, said St. Paul-based immigration attorney Graham Ojala-Barbour, who is not involved in either case but reviewed the circumstances for Sahan Journal.
A federal judge has to decide whether Günaydın’s constitutional rights were violated during the arrest and his detention, but an immigration judge will evaluate whether he should be deported.
Ojala-Barbour said the outcome of Günaydın’s lawsuit could have broader legal implications for how ICE carries out the arrests of other international students in the future.
“ICE will be aware of what the immigration judge and what the federal judge will rule on this case,” Ojala-Barbour said, adding that if the federal court sides with Günaydın, then it would limit the likelihood of similar arrests.
A Minnesota State University, Mankato student was arrested by ICE on March 28. MSU Mankato has declined to publicly share more information about the student, citing privacy laws and the student’s wishes. Numerous other international students throughout Minnesota have had their legal status revoked without being arrested, including five students at MSU Mankato, two at the University of Minnesota, one at Metro State University and several at St. Cloud State University.
Several other high-profile arrests of international students elsewhere in the country have been connected to pro-Palestine political speech. For example, on March 25, ICE officers arrested Rumeysa Öztürk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, while she was on her way to break her Ramadan fast. She appeared to have been targeted for co-authoring an opinion article in her student newspaper that was critical of Israel.
Günaydın’s lawsuit said he has not engaged in such political speech or activities.
Günaydın is being held in ICE custody at the Sherburne County jail, which contracts with ICE to house their detainees. He has seven days to file a response to the U.S. government’s filing.
