Columbia student activist Mohsen Mahdawi walked free from a Vermont courthouse on April 30, after a judge ordered his release from Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) custody on bail.
🚨🇵🇸BREAKING: MOHSEN MAHDAWI IS FREE!
Mahdawi, a student leader from the pro-Palestine movement Columbia University who was detained by ICE, has officially be released!
In the 2 weeks since his unjust arrest, people across the country and world have waged a committed campaign… pic.twitter.com/r0dqj2QLy0
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) April 30, 2025
Mahdawi was detained by federal immigration agents on April 14 as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont. Mahdawi, a Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was a leader in the pro-Palestine movement on Columbia’s campus.
Mahdawi was detained amid the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on the student movement in solidarity with Palestine, and was the second Palestinian Columbia student to be arrested following Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest on March 8. Khalil remains in ICE detention to this day, prevented from witnessing the birth of his first child.
“To Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” Mahdawi said upon release. “If we have faith in our beliefs, unshakeable beliefs, which is the belief that justice is inevitable, we will not fear anyone, because our fight is a fight for love, is a fight for democracy, is a fight for humanity.”
BREAKING: Palestinian Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released after two weeks in ICE detention.
Trump ordered him deported despite no charges and his permanent legal status.
Outside court, Mahdawi speaks out: “To Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” pic.twitter.com/CXjCNIhnrX
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) April 30, 2025
The Trump administration requested that Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford pause Mahdawi’s release for seven days, which the judge refused to do. In a written ruling, the federal judge wrote that Mahdawi’s continued detention would have a “chilling effect” on protected speech.
“Mr. Mahdawi’s ability to exercise his First Amendment rights is ‘severe[ly] curtail[ed]’ as long as he is detained,” Judge Crawford expressed in the ruling. “If he has been detained in retaliation for exercising those rights, release is essential to make habeas relief effective, not only for him but for others who wish to speak freely without fear of government retaliation.”
Judge Crawford also referenced the ongoing Trump administration policies against free speech on college campuses throughout the country.
“The court also considers the extraordinary setting of this case and others like it. Legal residents – not charged with crimes or misconduct – are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day. Our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palmer Raids of 1919–1920 that led to the deportation of hundreds of people suspected of anarchist or communist views.”
The overt arrest and targeting of pro-Palestine students such as Mahdawi and Khalil, as well as others including Rumeysa Ozturk, is only one part of what some have identified as the broader Trump administration attack on free speech on college campuses.
Trump officials have also revoked the visas of over 1,800 international students. Secretary of State Marco Rubio bragged about this policy at a press conference last month, tying these actions directly to pro-Palestine protests: “It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio told reporters. “If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us the reason you are coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus—we’re not going to give you a visa,” said Rubio.
Rubio himself justified Mahdawi’s detention by claiming that his “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest.”
