Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released on bail following a federal judge’s order on Wednesday. The move comes weeks after Mahdawi, 34, was taken into custody by armed agents from the Department of Homeland Security during a naturalization appointment in Vermont. Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail as his habeas corpus case proceeds through the court. The government had asked for a seven-day delay to the release order, which Crawford denied.
Mahdawi, a lawful U.S. permanent resident originally from a refugee camp in the West Bank, had been detained since April 14. He was held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vermont, under the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Court documents reveal that Mahdawi spent his early years in al-Fara, a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, where much of his family still resides. At the age of 15, he was shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier. He immigrated to the United States over ten years ago and began studying at Columbia in 2021.
Mahdawi was an active organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year and has a green card. In a DHS-issued notice requiring Mahdawi to appear, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the detention, claiming Mahdawi’s presence and actions in the U.S. posed a significant threat to U.S. foreign policy and could negatively impact diplomatic interests.
After his release, Mahdawi stood outside the Burlington, Vermont courthouse and addressed reporters, saying, “I want to say this loudly and clearly to President Trump and his administration: I am not afraid. What we are witnessing echoes what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned about: that injustice in one place endangers justice everywhere .. Yes you might think I am free, but my freedom is interlinked with the freedom of many other students.”
Outside the courthouse, Mahdawi’s legal team argued that the Trump administration of using retaliatory tactics against his right to express political views, as he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia University’s campus in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war. Luna Droubi, a partner at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, said: “The government’s actions are baseless, unsupported, and violate constitutional principlesThis is far from over—we will keep pushing until Mohsen’s freedom is fully secured.”
Speaking to the press on Wednesday, Mahdaw urged an end to the war in Gaza and criticized U.S. military aid to Israel: “We have a duty to defend human dignity. The eyes of the world, not just Palestine, are on America. What happens here will shape the future for everyone.”
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