US detains pro-Palestinian student protests organiser
A pro-Palestinian student protests organiser for Columbia University was detained by US immigration officials, the BBC reported on April 14th.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a philosophy major expected to graduate in May, was arrested in Colchester, Vermont while he attended an immigration interview. The green card holder, who moved to the United States in 2014, has held permanent residency in the US since 2015.
According to his lawyer, Luna Droubi, Mahdawi’s detention was “in direct retaliation” for the part he played in campus protests denouncing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Mahdawi co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Society and has been a vocal critic of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. He accused Israel of genocide during a CBS programme in December 2024.
“His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional,” said Droubi, who filed a request for a temporary restraining order in a federal court.
The order, granted by Judge William Sessions, prevents Mahdawi from being moved out of Vermont or deported from the country for a short-term period. The location of Mahdawi remains unknown.
Originally from a refugee camp in the West Bank, Mahdawi is described in the court filing as a committed Buddhist who espouses non-violence and empathy. He is the latest in a growing list of foreign students detained by immigration officials following campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, and Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student from Columbia University, have both also been arrested recently.
In Khalil’s case, an immigration judge ruled in favor of deportation on national security grounds — a decision now being appealed.
The crackdown on student organisers coincides with a wider immigration push under President Donald Trump’s administration. Last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that over 300 student visas had been revoked to combat what the administration describes as a rise in antisemitism on university campuses.
The US House previously passed a bill that expanded the definition of antisemitism to include “targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity”, according to Al-Jazeera on May 1st 2024.
At the time, rights groups expressed concerns that the definition combines criticism of the state of Israel and Zionism with anti-Semitism.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) expressed in a letter to lawmakers that they feared this change would be used to “chill free speech of students on college campuses by incorrectly equating criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism.”
BBC, Al-Jazeera
