Mohsen Mahdawi Released From ICE Detention

'To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you,' Mahdawi said after he was freed on bail.

Apr 30, 2025

*Mohsen Mahdawi speaks at a pro-Palestinian protest on the Columbia University campus on Nov. 9, 2023. Photo by Mukta Joshi/Getty Images*

Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from ICE detention.

On Wednesday, a judge denied the government’s request to pause his release and ordered him to be freed on bail, pending a legal challenge to the government’s detention of the Palestinian Columbia student in the first place. The Trump administration is attempting to deport Mahdawi on spurious charges of compromising US foreign policy.

“I am saying it clear and loud,” Mahdawi said outside the courthouse. “To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

Mahdawi was met with a massive crowd of supporters, chanting: “The people united will never be defeated.”

“We are pro-peace and anti-war,” Mahdawi told the crowd, concluding with: “To my people in Palestine: I feel your pain, I see your suffering; and I see freedom and it is very very soon.”

Vermont Rep. Becca Balint (D), who has been vocal on Mahdawi’s case, told Zeteo that the news was a welcome development, but that the struggle continues.

“Today’s news shows us what we can do when we fight for justice, when we come together and use our voices,” Balint said.

“Mohsen should have never been detained in the first place. And we won’t let the Trump Administration continue to detain and kidnap people off our streets in our name,” she added. “[I]f the Trump Administration can come for one of us, they will come for all of us.”

‘Disgrace to the Constitution’

Just weeks ago, Mahdawi had gone to a citizenship interview in Vermont, where masked and visibly armed immigration agents instead detained him.

Mahdawi, a green card holder, had been active in pro-Palestine and pro-peace campus protests during the last 18 months. The Trump administration justified his detention retroactively on the amorphous claim that he threatened the “Middle East peace process” due to his "threatening rhetoric and intimidation."

Geoffrey Crawford, the judge in Wednesday’s ruling, wrote that those who know Mahdawi “describe him as a peaceful figure who seeks consensus in a highly-charged political environment.”

But, Crawford added, “even if he were a firebrand, his conduct is protected by the First Amendment…The court is aware that he has offended his political opponents and apparently given rise to concerns at the State Department that he is an obstacle to American foreign policy. Such conduct is insufficient to support a finding that he is in any way a danger as we use that term in the context of detention and release.”

Luna Droubi, one of Mahdawi’s attorneys, said in a statement after the ruling that the Trump administration’s “claims and actions are baseless, without evidence, and are a disgrace to the US Constitution. We will keep fighting until Mohsen is free for good.”

The government had planned to send Mahdawi to Louisiana in the same fashion it has rushed off other people it has detained, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk (whose court-ordered transfer to Vermont has been temporarily stalled), and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri (who is now being held in a Texas detention center), according to court documents. But a judge blocked the Trump administration from moving him before he could be transferred.

In Mahdawi’s case, Judge Crawford contextualized “the extraordinary setting” of the case.

“Legal residents–not charged with crimes or misconduct–are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford said, citing the Red Scare and McCarthy-era targeting of people for their political views. “The wheel of history has come around again, but as before these times of excess will pass.”

If you are a student affected by this or someone who works in or around the US government with relevant information about these developments, please contact me via email or Signal (premthakker.35).

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional details throughout.

Check out more from Prem on Mohsen Mahdawi’s detention: