Students Are Winning in Court Against Trump’s Deportation Regime
In key victories for students, judges ruled to release Mohsen Mahdawi and allow Mahmoud Khalil’s case to advance in federal court. The post Students Are Winning in Court Against Trump’s Deportation Regime appeared first on The Intercept.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student arrested by the Trump administration during his citizenship interview, was released on bail on Wednesday in a notable victory for students fighting the government’s use of immigration enforcement as a means to silence dissent.
After Mahdawi’s 14 days in immigration detention, Vermont District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered the immediate release of the pro-Palestine activist, arguing in part that his continued detention would “likely have a chilling effect on protected speech.”
The judge also noted that Mahdawi, 34, is not a “flight risk” or a “danger to the community.”
Mahdawi’s legal fight is far from over. The U.S. permanent resident, who was born in the West Bank, will have to return to court to argue his habeas petition to block the government from detaining and deporting him.
But on Wednesday, Mahdawi struck a defiant tone. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” said Mahdawi from the outside Vermont courthouse.
“What we are witnessing now and what we’re understanding is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King has said before: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Mahdawi, a pacifist who stepped back from his activist work to focus on building bridges between Jewish and Israeli students and the Palestinian movement on campus, also shared a message of unity and joint struggle.
“What we are witnessing now and what we’re understanding is exactly what Dr. Martin Luther King has said before: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said.
On April 14, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Mahdawi at his scheduled naturalization interview. Mahdawi had previously been in hiding after ICE arrested his friend and fellow Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, fearing similar retaliation. His attorneys argued that the interview was effectively a “trap.” The government is now trying to deport him back to the West Bank, where he fears repression.
“It’s kind of a death sentence,” Mahdawi previously told The Intercept. “Because my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.”
While his legal battle is ongoing, the decision marks a clear victory for the international students at the center of the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian organizers. “We are hopeful that it will build momentum for the release of Mahmoud [Khalil], Rumeysa [Öztürk], Dr. Bader Khan Suri, and other students and scholars detained for their speech in support of Palestinian rights,” Noor Zafar, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and a member of Khalil’s legal team, wrote to The Intercept.
On Tuesday, a judge issued a key ruling in favor of Khalil, a Syrian-born U.S. permanent resident. The court ordered that Khalil’s attorneys can argue in federal court that he was detained and targeted for expressing his political views.
Despite these victories, both Khalil and Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student who had her visa revoked and was kidnapped off the street by ICE agents for writing an op-ed critical of Israel, remain detained in Louisiana. On Monday, an appeals court paused an earlier court order transferring Öztürk to Vermont. Her lawyers argued that could mean she remains in the Louisiana detention facility, notably without access to proper medical care, for months.
The post Students Are Winning in Court Against Trump’s Deportation Regime appeared first on The Intercept.
