Released Palestinian student helps launch immigrant legal aid initiative
in Vermont
[May 09, 2025]
By HOLLY RAMER and AMANDA SWINHART
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Palestinian student arrested during an
interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship helped launch a $1
million fundraising campaign to strengthen the legal safety net for
immigrants in Vermont on Thursday, a week after a federal judge freed
him from custody.
Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, who led protests against Israel’s war in Gaza at
Columbia University, spent 16 days in a state prison before a judge
ordered him released on April 30. The Trump administration has said
Mahdawi should be deported because his activism threatens its foreign
policy goals, but the judge ruled that he has raised a “substantial
claim” that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it
disagrees.
Immigration authorities have detained college students from around the
country since the first days of the Trump administration. Many of them
participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Mahdawi was
among the first to win his freedom after challenging his arrest.
“This is a message of hope and light, that our humanity is much larger
than what divides us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws,” he
said at a Statehouse news conference. “And this is also a message to the
rest of the world. It starts from Vermont.”
Mahdawi joined Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senate Majority
Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and community advocates to announce the
Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. The group, which also includes
lawyers and philanthropists, says the fund will be used to expand the
legal team at the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, train pro bono
attorneys and partner with community groups to support those facing
deportation, detention and family separation.
“I am here with a large and diverse group of Vermonters to say: We
protect and take care of our people, regardless of their national
origin, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of the
language they speak,” Ram Hinsdale said. “We take care of our own
against any and all threats.”
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Mohsen Mahdawi speaks during a press conference announcing the
launch of the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund in the Cedar
Creek Reception Room at the Vermont State House on Thursday, May 8,
2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photo/Alex Driehaus)
Members of Vermont’s congressional delegation have spoken up on
Mahdawi's behalf, as have state politicians. Vermont's House and
Senate passed resolutions condemning the circumstances of his
detention and advocating for his release and due process rights.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said there is no justification for
the manner in which Mahdawi was arrested, at an immigration office
in Colchester.
“Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the
shadows or hide behind masks,” the governor said the next day. “The
power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense,
but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute.”
Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, was born in a refugee camp in
the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in
2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the
Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian
permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was arrested
in March.
His release, which is being challenged by the government, allows him
to travel outside of his home state of Vermont and attend his
graduation from Columbia in New York later this month.
On Thursday, he described sharing a prison cell with a farmer from
Mexico who prayed every night.
“I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative,”
he said. “This is what I call love and care. This is what I call
humanity and justice. This is what I call the teachings of Jesus,
who would feed the hungry, who would shelter the homeless and who
would provide support to illegal immigrants.”
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