Washington (Quds News Network)- A Palestinian student at Columbia University was detained by immigration agents on Monday while attending an interview for his U.S. citizenship application. Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder and organizer of pro-Palestinian protests on campus, is set to graduate from the New York City college next month.
Mahdawi, a green card holder who moved from the occupied West Bank to the US ten years ago, was at the US immigration services offices in Colchester, Vermont, when he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Mahdawi is being targeted for his pro-Palestine activism on campus despite the fact that he has not been active since the spring of 2024.
His lawyer, Luna Droubi, said: “The Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.”
“His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”
On Monday, Mahdawi’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of his detention. They say the government has violated his statutory and due process rights by punishing him for speech related to Israel and Palestine.
He is facing deportation under a government provision that says they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.
According to reports, Mahdawi had played a leading role in the Columbia protests but stepped back to build “bridges with Jewish and Israeli communities on campus”.
Last December, he did an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes programme in which he accused Israel of genocide.
Mahdawi had reportedly asked Columbia professor Shai Davidai, a pro-Israel professor who has been accused of harassing pro-Palestine students at Columbia University, 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 characterising him and other protest organisers as “antisemitic” and “pro-Hamas”.
Since then, Mahdawi has been doxxed by Zionist groups like Canary Mission and Betar.
Mahdawi has been sheltering in place and living in fear for more than three weeks since ICE picked up fellow activist Mahmoud Khalil. He said he asked Columbia for help with a safe place, but they refused.
Immigration authorities scheduled the citizenship test at the Colchester citizenship and immigration services office but took Mahdawi into custody when he arrived.
Mahdawi joins others like Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Alireza Doroudi, who are all being held for their involvement in pro-Palestinian activism.
Video shared on social media apparently shows Mahdawi being escorted into a car by two officers wearing police jackets.
