A Palestinian student who was arrested during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship is helping launch an initiative to help other immigrants facing deportation in Vermont on Thursday, a week after a federal judge freed him from custody.
Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, was expected to join Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and community advocates at the Statehouse to announce the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. The group, which also includes lawyers and philanthropists, says the goal is to improve access to legal advice for immigrants and build long-term infrastructure within the justice system as it pertains to immigration law.
Mahdawi, a green card holder who led protests against Israel's war in Gaza at Columbia University, spent 16 days in a state prison before a judge ordered him released on April 30. The Trump administration has said Mahdawi should be deported because his activism threatens its foreign policy goals, but the judge ruled that he has raised a "substantial claim" that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees.
In his first network interview after his release, Mahdawi told CBS News that President Trump "will not silence me." He said he found the Trump administration's rationale for detaining him "laughable."
"A person who has been vocally advocating for justice and peace is undermining U.S. policy?" he told CBS News on Monday.
He called himself a peacemaker and said his arrest is "a red flag to everybody."
Immigration authorities have detained college students from around the country since the first days of the Trump administration. Many of them participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians. Mahdawi was among the first to win his freedom after challenging his arrest.
"Justice is inevitable. We will not fear anyone because our fight is a fight for love, a fight for democracy, a fight for humanity," Mahdawi told supporters outside the courthouse last week.
Mahdawi told CBS News he arrived for his citizenship appointment in Vermont in mid-April, took a citizenship test and signed a document that said he is willing to pledge allegiance to the Constitution. Toward the end of the process, he said immigration agents entered the office and detained him. Mahdawi said he doesn't know why they waited, instead of taking him into custody when he arrived.
Members of Vermont's congressional delegation have spoken up on Mahdawi's behalf, as have state politicians. Vermont's House and Senate passed resolutions condemning the circumstances of his detention and advocating for his release and due process rights.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said there is no justification for the manner in which Mahdawi was arrested, at an immigration office in Colchester.
"Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks," the governor said the next day. "The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute."
Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was arrested in March.
His release, which is being challenged by the government, allows him to travel outside of his home state of Vermont and attend his graduation from Columbia in New York later this month.