Burlington, vt. – A federal judge plans to consider an application on Wednesday to immediately release a Palestinian man who led War protests In Gaza as a student at Columbia University and was arrested during an interview about the completion of his American citizenship.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent legal resident for 10 years, was arrested on April 14 at the Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services of the United States in Colchester, Vermont, for immigration and customs compliance agents, their lawyers said. He is being arrested at the Northwest State Correctional Center in St. Albans.
Mahdawi’s lawyers say he was arrested in retaliation for his speech advocated by Palestinian human rights.
“We ask this court to suspend this illegal retaliation and slow down the serious threat to freedom of expression raised for its continuous detention by releasing Mr. Mahdawi on bail,” they ask in a judicial document presented on Tuesday.
The government also presented an answer on Tuesday. The presentations of the United States District Court in the case of Mahdawi, with the exception of judicial orders, are not publicly available online. A Mahdawi representative and a lawyer from the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to an email application for the document on Wednesday morning.
Mahdawi had attended his interview, answered questions and signed a document that was willing to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States Nation.
“It was a trap,” their lawyers said.
They said that masked ice agents entered the interview room, chained Mahdawi and put it in a car. Later, a judge issued an order that prohibits the government from withdrawing it from the State or the country.
Mahdawi is still scheduled for a hearing date in the Immigration Court in Louisiana on May 1, their lawyers said. His warning to appear says that he is removable under the immigration and nationality law because the Secretary of State has determined that his presence and activities “would have serious adverse consequences of foreign policy and would compromise a convincing foreign policy interest.”
Last month, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that the State Department revoked visas of visitors who were acting against national interests, including some who protested the Israel War in Gaza and those who face criminal charges.
According to the presentation of the court, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. He recently completed the courses in Columbia and was expected to graduate in May before starting a master’s program there in the fall.
As a student, Mahdawi was an open critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and Campus protests organized until March 2024.
The American senator Peter Welch from Vermont, a democrat, met with Mahdaw On Monday in prison and published a video account of his conversation in X. Mahdawi said he was “in good hands.” He said that his work focuses on peace and that his empathy extends beyond the Palestinian people to the Jews and the Israelis.
“I stay positive by reassuring myself in the ability of justice and the deep belief of democracy,” Mahdawi said in Welch’s video. “This is the reason why I wanted to become a citizen of this country, because I believe in the principles of this country.”
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Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack, in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
