Detention of Mohsen Mahdawi

Mohsen Mahdawi is a third-generation Palestinian refugee from the Far'a refugee camp, where he lived until 2014. Mahdawi said that, in his childhood in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, he saw his best friend—then 12 years old—shot and killed by an Israeli soldier. He also said an Israeli soldier shot him in the leg when he was 15. He was expected to graduate in May 2025, and was accepted into a master's program at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. ==Pro-Palestinian advocacy and protests==

Following the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, Mahdawi led and helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. There were pro-Israel counter-protesters, whom Mahdawi addressed: "Even though you're on the other side, we beg you, we cry, we ask you to see the humanity in us, to join us in our fight for freedom, for justice, for humanity." including Mahdawi, The suspension came after senior administrators quietly revised policies cited in the suspension on October 24, adding a new section to the University Event Policy webpage that declared the administration's right to "regulate the time, place and manner of certain forms of public expression" without input from the University Senate. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later cited the phrase "threatening rhetoric and intimidation" verbatim, apparently drawing from the statement that Columbia never retracted, in an April 2025 memo drawn up to support his case against Mahdawi. Columbia University Apartheid Divest Mahdawi also helped organize and launch Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a coalition of over 80 student groups (later amassing over 120 student groups) formed after Columbia's administration quietly changed the university's event policy before banning Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. CUAD was launched on November 14, four days after the administration banned SJP and JVP. and remained in contact with David Myers, a former leader of the progressive New Israel Fund and a professor of Jewish history at the University of California, Los Angeles. He repeatedly denounced antisemitism in speeches and interviews, and connected his opposition to antisemitism with his support for the Palestinian cause, saying that "the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand in hand, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." One of Mahdawi's Israeli colleagues, Aharon Dardik, stated that Mahdawi was vocally opposed to terrorism and antisemitism, instead advocating for peaceful opposition to the conflict. Mahdawi and Dardik created a "framework for the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" as one of their class's final research projects. == Arrest by ICE agents ==

Mahdawi's arrest by ICE agents was in coordination with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office in Colchester, Vermont, which had scheduled an April 15 interview for Mahdawi to obtain his U.S. citizenship. Background Earlier in the month, Mahdawi had received an email from USCIS stating that he had an interview scheduled to obtain his US citizenship. Mahdawi created a Signal group chat titled "Just in case – Mohsen" to communicate with his close friends if he was arrested. White was among those included in the chat. In the period leading up to his arrest, Mahdawi was targeted by Zionist groups such as Canary Mission and Betar. The school did nothing to respond to his appeal. == Legal proceedings ==

On April 14, Mahdawi's legal team filed a habeas corpus petition against Donald Trump and his administration, describing his detention as unlawful. Vermont federal judge Geoffrey W. Crawford extended the request on April 23. According to immigration lawyer Joshua Bardavid, "a case is heard where you are detained, and certain courts are known for being much more government-friendly than other locations." A memo from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently drawing from Columbia's mischaracterization of a campus protest on November 9, 2023, stating that "the two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime." The Trump administration then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, asking the court for an emergency stay of Crawford's ruling and challenging the determination that Crawford had authority to make such a ruling. The case was assigned to judges Susan Carney, Alison Nathan, and Barrington Parker, and on May 9, they denied the appeal. In his statement outside the courtroom following his release, Mahdawi told a crowd of supporters, "we are pro-peace and anti-war" and "to President Trump and his Cabinet, I'm not afraid of you," He then joined the crowd in singing the Civil Rights anthem, We Shall Overcome. Immigration court proceedings On February 13, 2026, an immigration judge dismissed the deportation case against Mahdawi, determining that the government failed to authenticate Rubio's memo, which was the basis for the deportation proceedings. According to his attorneys, the court’s ruling was issued without prejudice, meaning that the government could appeal the decision or file the case, anew. == Reactions ==

All three of Vermont's members of Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Peter Welch, and Representative Becca Balint, released a joint statement the day of the detention condemning it as "immoral, inhumane, and illegal". David Myers, former leader of the progressive New Israel Fund and a professor of Jewish history at the University of California, Los Angeles, similarly criticized Mahdawi's detention, stating, "This person constitutes a bridge, and we've torn that bridge down instead of embracing it." An article in The Boston Globe profiled the high level of support for Mahdawi in his home state of Vermont, covering a substantial protest at his remote place of detention. == See also ==