MINNEAPOLIS — A jailed University of Minnesota student from Turkey alleges in a court petition that federal agents illegally arrested him last week and stripped him of his student visa.

Dogukan Gunaydin, 28, filed the petition in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis on Sunday. It names as respondents President Donald Trump and Cabinet members, in connection with his apprehension outside his St. Paul home by Homeland Security agents and the revocation of his visa because of a drunken driving offense.

There is no indication that U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) targeted Günaydin for any protest activities in opposition to White House policies, as has been the case for other international college students as part of a broader federal crackdown.

DWI arrests are a common way for unlawful immigrants to catch the attention of ICE, and the agency has prioritized such cases recently amid Trump’s push for mass deportations.

“Mr. Gunaydin has committed no crime that is cause for termination of his student status or that renders him deportable,” his petition asserted. It pointed out that he “has attended no protests and written no politically driven publications. … Neither Mr. Gunaydin nor his counsel has been provided with any documentation or indication that he may be facing a charge related to national security or foreign policy.”

Following his arrest, the filing continued, Gunaydin had his cellphone seized and was “left waiting for hours on end without access to his friends, family or attorney.”

Gunaydin, a master’s student in the U’s Carlson School of Management, was not told why he was arrested or what his fate might be other than that his student visa was revoked and he has a hearing before an immigration judge on April 8.

In the meantime, he remains held Wednesday in the Sherburne County jail, which contracts with ICE to house immigrant detainees and other federal inmates.

The petition alleges that Gunaydin, who came to the U.S. from Istanbul in January 2022 to study at St. Olaf College in Northfield, was denied his right to due process under the law and calls for his release pending resolution of his immigration status and restoration of his student visa.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is acting as counsel for the respondents. The Minnesota Star Tribune has asked the office for a response to the allegations in Gunaydin’s petition.

Gunaydin’s drunken driving conviction stems from a June 2023 traffic stop when a Minneapolis police officer noticed Gunaydin’s car nearly hit a stop light, jump a curb and weave in and out of traffic.

Court records show the officer said Gunaydin did not immediately stop after he activated his squad lights to pull him over; when Gunaydin did stop and the officer began to step out of his car, the man drove away. After the officer called for assistance and Gunaydin finally stopped, police took him to a chemical testing facility where they found his blood-alcohol concentration was more than twice the legal limit.

In March 2024, Gunaydin pleaded guilty to a DWI and received a six-month sentence, which was stayed for two years, at a county correctional facility. The last point of his plea agreement stated, “I understand that if I am not a citizen of the United States, my plea of guilty may result in deportation, exclusion from admission to the United States, or denial of naturalization as a United States citizen.”

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(Maya Rao, Louis Krauss and Jp Lawrence of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.)

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