Judge orders detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi to be held in Vermont for now

A Columbia University student and vocal pro-Palestinian advocate was arrested by immigration authorities when he went to sit for a naturalization interview Monday, according to his attorneys.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent United States resident and green card holder who emigrated from the West Bank, was arrested by immigration authorities in Vermont, where his permanent residence is located, one of his attorneys told Gothamist.

“The Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian,” one of Mahdawi’s attorneys, Luna Droubi, said in a statement. “His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”

Mahdawi’s attorneys filed a petition in federal court in Vermont after his arrest, requesting a judge end what they view as the federal government targeting non-citizens for exercising their First Amendment rights. He hasn't been charged with a crime, according to his attorneys.

U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions on Monday night ordered that immigration authorities cannot move Mahdawi out of Vermont without the court's approval.

Mahdawi, 34, was a vocal pro-Palestinian student leader at Columbia in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas in Israel. He regularly spoke at protests and coordinated student groups during the student encampments that occupied the university’s campus last spring.

His arrest was the latest in a series of detentions by federal immigration authorities of pro-Palestinian protestors at Columbia and at other university campuses across the country. On Friday, a Louisiana judge ruled that detained Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil could be deported.

Khalil is also a legal U.S. resident and was a prominent member and negotiator in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last year. Immigration officers have also sought Yunseo Chung, another Columbia student who was active in the protests. Chung is a junior at Columbia and a legal U.S. resident who has lived in the country since she was 7.

Mahdawi completed his undergraduate studies at Columbia last year and was slated to graduate next month before pursuing a master’s degree at the university in the fall, according to legal filings. He had a permanent residence in Vermont, according to Cyrus Mehta, another one of his attorneys.

Mehta said he was called for a naturalization interview as part of his application to become a U.S. citizen at a USCIS facility in Colchester, Vt., where he was arrested Monday.

“He got this interview and obviously we suspected it might be a ruse, but he decided to go for it,” Mehta said. “Because this was his opportunity to get naturalized and therefore once you become a citizen, you're no longer amenable to deportation.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security referred questions to the U.S. State Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Citing student privacy laws, a Columbia University spokesperson declined to comment on Mahdawi’s arrest or say how many of the school’s students have been detained by immigration officials since President Trump took office.

The Trump administration has invoked a provision within immigration law that allows the federal government to deport people who threaten the country's foreign policy interests. Federal officials have said they are detaining students who they accuse of antisemitic activities and disruptions.

Professors at a rally for academic freedom at Columbia on Monday said the Trump administration is using antisemitism as a pretext for attacks on university funding and detention of students.

Joseph Howley, an associate professor of classics at Columbia, was at the protest when he learned of Mahdawi’s detention.

“Mohsen is being targeted for the same reason that Mahmoud Khalil is being targeted, that he’s Palestinian, that he’s spoken out not just against the war in Gaza … but he is someone who has always spoken out loudly for peace and justice and communal liberation of everyone.”

Mahdawi, who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, routinely shared his story with the press and in public. He said as a child he witnessed the killing of his uncle and cousins by Israeli soldiers, and was also shot in the leg at 15 years old.

“We come together today to stand against injustice, to stand for humanity, to stand for freedom,” Mahdawi said in a speech to students in November 2023 at a protest on the Columbia campus. “ We said it before, and we say it now, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Columbia agreed last month to a list of demands from the Trump administration in order to retain $400 million in federal funding that was withheld. The demands included a revision of protest policies like barring face masks on campus, hiring 36 internal security officers and formalizing the university’s definition of antisemitism.

This story has been updated with additional information.