Judge orders release of ICE-detained Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi

Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during what was supposed to be a naturalization interview, was released from his detention Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ruled the green-card holder, who had been held in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vt., should be set free after weeks of detention, denying the federal government’s request for a seven-day stay on that release.

In his ruling, Crawford said it is in the public interest for Mahdawi to be released, citing First Amendment concerns.

“His continued detention would likely have a chilling effect on protected speech, which is squarely against the public interest. And continuing to detain him would not benefit the public in any way, as Mahdawi appears not to be either a flight risk or a danger to the community,” Crawford said.

“Finally, Mr. Mahdawi’s release will benefit his community, which appears to deeply cherish and value him,” he added.

Mahdawi is the first foreign student to be released after being arrested by the Trump administration for the purposes of deportation.

“I am saying it clear and loud, to President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” he said to applause outside the courthouse before leading the crowd in a chant of “no fear.”

Crawford did not set another hearing for Mahdawi’s proceedings, but the government is not done trying to deport him.

“When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country. We have the law, facts and commonsense on our side,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant Homeland Security secretary, said on X after the ruling.

“No judge, not this one or another, is going to stop the Trump Administration from restoring the rule of law to our immigration system,” McLaughlin added.

Mahdawi’s arrest went viral after a video was posted of plainclothes officers putting handcuffs on him while he was at his naturalization interview to become a citizen.  

He is one of several international students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations who have been targeted for deportation by the Trump administration under an obscure law that allows the secretary of State to remove those seen as posing a threat to U.S. foreign policy.

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We’ve given you a visa and you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously said about the Trump administration’s crackdown.

“We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country,” Rubio added. 

The move marks the biggest win to date for foreign students and faculty who have been arrested by the Trump administration.

“Mohsen is a ray of light in his communities, and we are so relieved that today he walked out those courtroom doors and back into the arms of his loved ones,” said Luna Droubi, partner of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP and part of his legal team. “Their claims and actions are baseless, without evidence, and are a disgrace to the U.S. Constitution. We will keep fighting until Mohsen is free for good.” 

Mahmoud Khalil, the first pro-Palestinian student to be arrested, is still in a detention center after a Louisiana immigration judge allowed the case against him to proceed. Khalil’s attorneys are also working to get him released on bail after his wife recently gave birth to the couple’s first child.  

In his first 100 days, Trump has aggressively cracked down on both legal and illegal immigration, though his actions against college students have largely been focused on those who participated in campus demonstrations last year amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mahdawi and Khalil were both leaders in Columbia’s protests; they are also both green card holders.

“Particularly for green card holders in the United States, they’re entitled to almost the full scope of First Amendment rights that U.S. citizens are as well. And so, taking action to strip someone of a green card or deport them from this country based solely on their political speech or participation in political protests would almost certainly be unconstitutional,” Carrie DeCell, a senior staff attorney for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, previously told The Hill.  

Trump’s administration has accused the schools that saw pro-Palestinian encampments of allowing antisemitism and students including Mahdawi of being “pro-Hamas,” though it has offered little evidence of the latter accusation.

“As we have said, every individual in this country, citizen and non-citizen alike, deserves the due process rights afforded them by law,” a spokesperson for Columbia said Wednesday.

Asked in an NPR interview released Tuesday if he still wants to be a U.S. citizen, Mahdawi said, “It’s up to the American people to decide what path they would want to take, whether to have the path where they welcome me as a citizen of this country or not.”

Updated at 3:24 p.m. EDT