Mohsen Mahdawi, a philosophy major at Columbia University who is due to graduate later this semester, was attending a US citizenship application interview in Vermont on Monday when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wearing hoods and masks took him from the building, put him into an unmarked car, and drove off.
[archived image unavailable]
His current whereabouts are “unknown”, said his lawyer, according to the BBC.
Mahdawi is a green card holder. According to the BBC:
His lawyer, Luna Droubi, said: “The Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian.
“His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”
The attorney applied to a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent US immigration authorities moving Mr Mahdawi out of Vermont or expelling him from the US.
Judge William Sessions, an Obama appointee, quickly granted that order.
The court filing says Mr Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the US in 2014.
It describes the philosophy major as a committed Buddhist who believes in “non-violence and empathy as a central tenet of his religion”.
Mahdawi was interviewed last year by 60 Minutes about the student protests at Columbia regarding Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack on October 7th, 2023. In the interview he says:
To be anti-Semitic is unjust. And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti-Semitism go hand in hand, because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
A clip of the interview is below.
Watch archived video on YouTube
(via Shen-Yi Liao)
UPDATE: Via Deborah Achtenberg, I learned about a public Facebook post by David Myers, professor of history, holder of the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History, and former director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA:
Coming off of two days of Passover, I was horrified to discover that my friend, Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi, was arrested. I met Mohsen at a meeting in late spring 2024 and have been in touch with him ever since. He is a remarkable and humane person who experienced the worst of Israel’s occupation as a young kid in the Jenin refugee camp, took up arms as a teenager, and then decided to foreswear the path of armed struggle for non-violence. He became an activist in the Palestinian solidarity movement at Columbia, all the while believing in the importance of engaging with and talking to those with whom he disagreed. Let’s be clear: Mohsen was arrested not because he was a supporter of violence or a threat to national security but FOR THE CRIME OF BEING PALESTINIAN. His commitment to non-violence was not always popular with some in the Palestinian solidarity movement, and his fierce criticism of the occupation led others to us accuse him–quite scandalously–of being antisemitic. But he had the courage of his convictions, rooted in his core belief in the dignity of all human life.
His arrest is a profound miscarriage of justice–and in line with the scandalous harassment, arrest, and deportation of others who have dared to express support for the principle of Palestinian liberation. He is indeed a political prisoner of a rogue regime that is descending ever further into authoritarianism. If this is the kind of person they deem a threat, there is no end to their perfidy. Those who care about the rule of law, freedom of expression, and support for the cause of justice in Israel-Palestine cannot remain silent.
Professor Myers’ post is here.
