A Palestinian student at Columbia is freed after his arrest at a
citizenship interview
[May 01, 2025]
By AMANDA SWINHART and HOLLY RAMER
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday released a Palestinian
student at Columbia University who led protests against Israel's war in
Gaza and was arrested by immigration officials during an interview about
finalizing his U.S. citizenship.
Immigration authorities have arrested and detained college students from
around the country since the first days of the Trump administration,
many of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war,
which has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians.
Mohsen Mahdawi is among the first of those students to win his freedom
after challenging an arrest. He walked out of a Vermont courthouse
Wednesday and led hundreds of supporters in chants including “No fear”
and “Free Palestine.” He said people must come together to defend both
democracy and humanity.
“Never give up on the idea that justice will prevail,” he said. “We want
to stand up for humanity, because the rest of the world — not only
Palestine — is watching us. And what is going to happen in America is
going to affect the rest of the world.”
Mahdawi, 34, has been a legal permanent resident for 10 years. He was in
a Vermont state prison since April 14. In his release order, U.S.
District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said Mahdawi has raised a “substantial
claim that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it
disagrees.”
“Even if he were a firebrand, his conduct is protected by the First
Amendment,” the judge wrote, adding that offending political opponents
or alarming the State Department doesn’t make him dangerous enough to
justify detention.
The U.S. government argues they can remove Mahdawi from the country
under the Immigration and Nationality Act. That's because Secretary of
State Marco Rubio says his presence and activities “would have serious
adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling
U.S. foreign policy interest."
A government attorney said Wednesday that Mahdawi is a national security
threat, pointing to a 2015 FBI investigation into allegations that he
made threatening comments about Jews at a gun shop — but the judge said
the FBI appears to have determined those accusations were fabricated.
Mahdawi will appear remotely before an immigration judge in Louisiana on
Thursday, his lawyers said. The U.S. attorney’s office did not respond
to messages seeking comment on whether it will appeal his release.
According to a court filing, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the
Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. He
organized campus protests at Columbia until March 2024 and cofounded the
school's Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another
Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was
arrested in March.
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Mohsen Mahdawi speaks outside the courthouse after a judge released
the Palestinian student activist on Wednesday, April 30, 2025 in
Burlington, Vt. (AP Photo/Amanda Swinhart)
Khalil has been held for nearly eight weeks in a Louisiana detention
center, missing the birth of his first child. An immigration judge ruled
that Khalil can be forced out of the country as a national security
risk.
In another high-profile case, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student
from Turkey, was detained in March over what her lawyers say is apparent
retaliation for an op-ed piece she co-wrote in the student newspaper.
More than 1,000 college students nationwide have had their visas revoked
or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an
Associated Press review. The federal government has since announced it
will reverse the termination of legal status for international students
after many filed court challenges, a government lawyer said Friday.
The judge referred to the Ozturk case and others like it in his ruling,
saying such arrests are reminiscent of nationwide raids targeting
suspected anarchists and communists in 1919 and 1920 and deportations
during the McCarthy era of the 1950s.
“Security is like liberty in that many are the crimes committed in its
name,” he wrote, quoting from a dissent in a 1950 case.
Mahdawi's release allows him to travel outside his home state of Vermont
and attend graduation next month in New York. He recently completed
coursework at Columbia and planned to begin a master’s degree program
there in the fall.
The Ivy League university has faced criticism from some students for
agreeing to implement a host of policy changes demanded by the Trump
administration. After Mahdawi’s release, school spokesperson Millie Wert
said every person in the country deserves due process regardless of
their citizenship status.
Outside the Vermont courthouse, Mahdawi directly addressed President
Donald Trump and his Cabinet, saying, “I am not afraid of you.”
“If there is no fear, what is it replaced with?” he said. “Love. Love is
our way.”
___
Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers
Kathy McCormack and Kimberlee Kruesi also contributed.
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