The detention of Mohsen Mahdawi comes a number of weeks after the detention of fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was an affiliate of Mahdawi.
Columbia College pupil Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on April 14 throughout a naturalization interview in Vermont.
The transfer comes weeks after the detention of Mahdawi’s Columbia affiliate, Mahmound Khalil, because the Trump administration continues to focus on non-citizen college students in a crackdown on alleged assist for Hamas throughout college protests within the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, assaults by the terrorist group on Israel.
Mahdawi’s attorneys issued a habeas corpus petition the identical day as his detention, April 14. It alleges his detention violates the First and Fifth Amendments, saying the scholar’s “speech concerning Israel’s navy marketing campaign in Gaza, human rights, worldwide regulation, obligations arising from worldwide regulation, and associated issues is speech protected by the First Modification.”
“Mr. Mahdawi is fearful that, if he loses his lawful everlasting resident standing and he’s eliminated to the West Financial institution, he’ll expertise the identical harassment, detention, and torture that his household has skilled, and could be in much more hazard in mild of the campaigns which have focused and unfold lies about him,” the petition states.
Mahdawi was a authorized everlasting resident of america.
In response to the submitting, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp within the West Financial institution and co-founded a Palestinian pupil group, Dar, at Columbia with Khalil.
Final week, an immigration decide dominated that the Trump administration might deport Khalil after the federal government argued his presence in america had “doubtlessly severe overseas coverage penalties.” Khalil’s workforce stated they might enchantment that call.
After Khalil’s detention, Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed reporters: “This isn’t about free speech. That is about people who don’t have a proper to be in america to start with.
“I believe being a supporter of Hamas and coming into our universities and turning them the other way up and being complicit in what are clearly crimes of vandalization, complicit in shutting down studying establishments … if you happen to informed us that’s what you meant to do whenever you got here to America, we’d have by no means allow you to in,” the secretary of state added.
Within the weeks after the Oct. 7 assaults, Mahdawi’s pupil group joined with the Columbia College Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition.
In response to the July Revolution in Bangladesh, which led to the overthrow of the prime minister, CUAD’s Instagram account lauded a press release that appeared to endorse the actions taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. Attackers killed roughly 1,200 folks, principally civilian Israelis, and kidnapped greater than 250.
The assertion, attributed to the Individuals of Hind’s Corridor, reads: “Simply because the Palestinian resistance escalated the intifada on October seventh, it’s now the folks of Bangladesh who’re escalating the worldwide battle for liberation.”
The submitting from Mahdawi’s lawyer describes him as a Buddhist who “believes in non-violence and empathy as a central tenet of his faith.” It additionally claims that he spoke out in opposition to anti-Semitism throughout a protest.
It additionally alleges Mahdawi “encroached on and shouted by means of a megaphone at Jews and different Israel supporters.”
The Epoch Occasions has reached out to ICE for remark.