BURLINGTON — A federal judge in Burlington heard arguments Monday in the case of a Tufts University student who was arrested by immigration agents in Massachusetts late last month and then transferred to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana via Vermont.

Judge William Sessions didn’t immediately rule during the hearing on the challenge by the student, Rümeysa Öztürk, to ICE’s decision to detain her. But he did appear open to ordering her brought to Vermont, again — an idea supported by her attorneys.

Öztürk, whose arrest by plainclothes officers has since drawn national attention, is currently in ICE custody at a facility in Basile, Louisiana. Her attorneys have asked Sessions to order her released on bail as her case proceeds, or if not that, to have her held in federal custody in Vermont instead.

The federal government has contested both of those requests, arguing that Öztürk’s case should instead be delegated entirely to the federal immigration court system. The graduate student has additional proceedings in that system already, which center on the feds’ move to deport her.

Öztürk’s attorneys have argued that ICE wrongly targeted her for exercising her rights to free speech. The government appears to have targeted Öztürk for co-writing an op-ed in Tufts’ student newspaper that criticized university leaders for their response to demands that the school divest from companies with ties to Israel, her attorneys have said.

Ahead of Monday’s hearing at the federal courthouse in downtown Burlington, hundreds of people gathered waving Palestinian flags and holding handmade signs in support of Öztürk, who is from Turkey but had permission to study in the U.S. under a student visa.

The rally was organized by the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation and featured speakers from that organization, Vermonters for Justice in Palestine and University of Vermont Students for Justice in Palestine, among others. Crowds outside the courthouse formed before the hearing started at 9:30 a.m., and many stayed for hours until the proceedings concluded around midday.

“It’s incredibly important to show up in force and be loud and proud about what we believe, which is that the detention of Rümeysa is wrong. It is unjust, and she must be released immediately,” said James O’Malley, an organizer with UVM Students for Justice in Palestine.