A judge on Wednesday, April 30, 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 US 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 war in Gaza, 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. Mahdawi, 34, has been a legal permanent resident for 10 years. He had been in a Vermont state prison since April 14. In his release order, US 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 US government argues they can remove Mahdawi from the country under the Immigration and Nationality Act; Secretary of State Marco Rubio says his presence and activities "would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest."
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 US and graduate student who was arrested in March. 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. The federal government has since announced it will reverse the termination of legal status for international students after many filed court challenges.
Outside the courthouse, Mahdawi directly addressed President Donald Trump and his Cabinet, saying, "I am not afraid of you" and "If there is no fear, what is it replaced with?" He continued: "Love. Love is our way."