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Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder and student at Columbia University who was detained by the Trump administration on 14 April, will have a hearing next week on his request for release on bail, a federal judge decided on Wednesday.
Judge Geoffrey W Crawford extended a temporary restraining order issued by a separate judge last week to keep Mahdawi in Vermont. Immigration authorities have sent other foreign students arrested for their pro-Palestinian views to detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, jurisdictions typically overseen by more conservative judges.
“I don’t want Mr Mahdawi to be whisked away to another state,” Crawford said, adding later: “If he’s moved to another state, it creates a second tier of issues. He’s a Vermont resident, he was arrested in Vermont.”
Mahdawi, who was prominent in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last spring, was arrested by Ice in Colchester, Vermont, while he was attending a naturalization interview, his lawyer said in a statement to the Guardian. The Trump administration is seeking to deport him on the grounds that his presence in the US could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process, part of a dramatic crackdown on political speech that began with the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil in early March.
After Wednesday’s hearing in Vermont, Mahdawi said in a statement from Ice detention via his lawyers: “I don’t want people to lose hope. Stay positive and believe in the inevitability of justice. This hearing is part of the democratic system as it prevents a tyrant from having unchecked power. Keep the hope alive. I will see you under the sun.”
When Mahdawi was first arrested, he was taken by the Ice agents to a car that immediately set out on “a clear plan to ship him to Louisiana”, according to a Tuesday legal filing by Mahdawi’s legal team to secure his release from detention, obtained by Zeteo.
The Trump administration had previously sent other detainees seized on similar grounds – such as Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk and Badar Khan Suri – to Louisiana. Suri is now in a Texas detention center.
In a court filing on Monday, Mahdawi’s attorneys also emphasized that he was not a flight risk or a danger to the community, per ABC.
The network also noted that his attorneys said his release was necessary to avoid “what is a devastating punitive consequence of Mahdawi’s continued detention, namely, the disruption of his education”. He is set to graduate from Columbia with a degree in philosophy next month.
His attorney, Luna Droubi, said at that time of Mahdawi’s detention that “the Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian”, adding that “his detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”
In a statement given to Zeteo via his legal team on Wednesday, Mahdawi said: “I am in prison but am not prisoned. A system of democracy guarantees freedom of speech. Speaking of Palestine does not only qualify as freedom of speech but it is also about our humanity.”
