Columbia University Student Activist Detained By Ice Freed By Judge’s Order

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old Palestinian-born student astatine Columbia University and U.S. imperishable resident, connected April 14, 2025. He had arrived astatine a Vermont migration agency for what was scheduled to beryllium nan final measurement successful his naturalization process.

Instead, plainclothes national agents arrested him without providing contiguous accusation astir wherever they were taking him. Mahdawi was later held astatine nan Northwest State Correctional Facility successful St. Albans, Vermont.

What reasons did nan authorities springiness for detaining him?

The Trump management accused Mahdawi of threatening U.S. overseas policy interests owed to his engagement successful pro-Palestinian field activism. The Department of Homeland Security wished his beingness successful nan U.S. arsenic harmful to negotiated objectives.

Federal filings besides cited a 2015 constabulary study from a Vermont weapon shop proprietor who alleged that Mahdawi made violent, antisemitic remarks during a visit. Mahdawi denied ever making specified statements, calling nan relationship mendacious and inconsistent pinch his individual beliefs.

What did nan tribunal determine astir Mahdawi’s case?

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Mahdawi’s merchandise connected bail, ruling that he did not airs a threat to nationalist information aliases a formation risk. The tribunal allowed Mahdawi to resume his studies astatine Columbia while his lawsuit moves forward.

The judge denied a authorities petition to hold nan merchandise and said Mahdawi had knowledgeable “great harm” during his detention. Crawford besides compared nan government’s attack to targeting student protesters to McCarthy-era repression of world speech.

What was Mahdawi’s consequence pursuing his release?

Speaking extracurricular nan courthouse, Mahdawi said he was not acrophobic of nan Trump management and called attraction to different detained student activists, including Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia and Rümeysa Öztürk of Tufts. Mahdawi emphasized that his state is tied to theirs, and called for an extremity to nan Gaza warfare and U.S. assistance to Israel. He led chants pinch supporters and warned that home actions connected free reside and civilian liberties would person world consequences.

What is nan broader discourse of student deportations?

Mahdawi’s lawsuit is portion of a broader national effort to detain and deport world students connected to pro-Palestinian protests. Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a ineligible proviso that allows for nan removal of individuals deemed adverse to U.S. overseas policy.

Vermont’s legislature delegation publically criticized Mahdawi’s arrest, calling it an maltreatment of powerfulness and a usurpation of owed process. Advocacy organizations representing Mahdawi, including his ineligible squad astatine Beldock Levine & Hoffman, said nan government’s lawsuit lacked grounds and was retaliatory. They based on that Mahdawi’s activism should not disqualify him from naturalization aliases from being successful lawful beingness successful nan U.S.