An anti-Israel protester from Columbia University was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday at an immigration office in Vermont.
Mohsen Mahdawi, who was a student leader of anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, was arrested after arriving at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester, Vermont, to take a United States citizenship test, according to the Intercept.
In the aftermath of Mahdawi’s detainment, his lawyers “filed a habeas corpus petition” to challenge “the legality of his detention,” according to the outlet.
“Petitioner Mohsen Mahdawi is a lawful permanent resident of the United States on the pathway to naturalization,” the habeas corpus petition said. “He has held a green card for the past ten years. This case concerns the government’s retaliatory and targeted detention and attempted removal of Mr. Mahdawi for his constitutionally protected speech.”
The habeas corpus petition continued to note that the Trump administration appears to “base Mr. Mahdawi’s removal on the Rubio Determination and Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act”:
It appears that Respondents seek to base Mr. Mahdawi’s removal on the Rubio Determination and Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a rarely-used provision that Respondents recently used to detain another lawful permanent resident, Mahmoud Khalil, for similar speech.
Prior to and following Mr. Mahdawi’s detention, the government has made clear that it intends to retaliate and punish individuals such as Mr. Mahdawi who advocated for ceasefire and ending the bloodshed in Gaza. Respondents’ actions plainly violate the First Amendment, which protects Mr. Mahdawi’s right to speak on matters of public concern and prevents the government from chilling constitutionally-protected speech.
Mahdawi’s attorney, Luna Droubi, claimed to the Intercept that Mahdawi was “unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity.”
U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered that Mahdawi “not be removed from the United States or moved out of the territory of the District of Vermont pending further order of” the court.
Per the outlet, Shai Davidai, an assistant professor of business at the Columbia Business School, has described Mahdawi “as antisemitic and pro-Hamas,” after Davidai and Mahdawi met for coffee:
In December 2023, Mahdawi asked Columbia professor Shai Davidai, a controversial pro-Israel figure at the school, to get coffee. The two met, but Mahdawi later said that Davidai left in the middle of the coffee. Less than two months after the meeting, Davidai posted a video of Mahdawi to Twitter in a thread characterizing him and other protest organizers as antisemitic and pro-Hamas. (Davidai did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) issued a joint statement in response to Mahdawi’s arrest, describing his detainment as “immoral, inhumane, and illegal.”
“Earlier today, Mohsen Mahdawi of White River Junction, Vermont, walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process,” the statement said. “Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plainclothes, armed, individuals with their faces covered. These individuals refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him. This is immoral, inhuman, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”
The arrest of Mahdawi comes after ICE agents in March arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who had graduated from Columbia University and also led the anti-Israel protests.