Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi got released on bail after a judge said he could leave federal immigration custody last Wednesday. This happened a few weeks after the DHS agents in Vermont grabbed him during his naturalization interview.
Mahdawi, 34 years old, is a permanent resident of the U.S. who grew up in a refugee camp in the West Bank. On April 14, they took him and kept him at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spot called the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vermont.
Outside the courthouse in Vermont, Mahdawi told President Trump and his crew that he’s not scared of them. He also shouted some wisdom from Dr. Martin Luther King about how injustice anywhere is a big problem.
Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford said Mahdawi can get out of jail on bail while they figure out his habeas petition. The government wanted the judge to wait for seven days before letting Mahdawi go, but the judge said nope.
After the court session, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that the judge can’t stop the Trump team from fixing the immigration system. She said getting a visa or green card in the U.S. is a big deal, but if you support violence or harass Jews, you don’t deserve to stay.
The Justice Department didn’t say anything right away about what happened.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio thought it was okay to keep Mahdawi locked up because having him around would make some trouble for U.S. foreign policy. That’s what the DHS told Mahdawi when they called him to court.
Mahdawi helped set up pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last year, and he has a green card. The government said Mahdawi admitted to being part of anti-Jewish violence and liking guns for that reason. They even showed the court a report where someone said Mahdawi once talked about building machine guns to kill Jews.
But Mahdawi said he never said stuff like that and he’s actually a peaceful person. His lawyers at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP said the government was just trying to mess with him because he spoke up.
Mahdawi grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp and got shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier when he was 15. He came to the U.S. over ten years ago and started studying at Columbia in 2021.
The Trump gang has been using similar excuses to grab other foreign students who were involved in pro-Palestinian protests or criticized Israel. For example, they took Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, who wrote about Israel and Gaza.
Mahdawi wants everyone to remember that his fight is also their fight. He called for the release of Öztürk and Khalil and said we need to stop the war in Gaza and the U.S. aid to Israel.
In the end, Mahdawi said we need to stand up for everyone around the world, not just Palestine. He thinks what happens in the U.S. affects everyone else, so we better pay attention.
Alright, that’s the scoop on the whole Mahdawi situation. It’s a wild ride, folks.
