For Mohsen Mahdawi, the fight began in a refugee camp in the West Bank, where he was born and raised. It followed him across an ocean, through the gates of Columbia University, and finally into an American courtroom where, last Friday, a judge decided that the government had gone too far.
A US immigration judge has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia University student who was arrested last April after participating in pro Palestinian campus protests. Immigration Judge Nina Froes ruled that the Department of Homeland Security failed to prove Mahdawi should be removed from the country. The government’s key piece of evidence, a document signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was rejected by the judge as unauthenticated.
“This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy,” Mahdawi said afterward. “The right to speak for peace and justice.”
His story is not unique. The Trump administration has aggressively moved to detain and deport non-citizen students who voiced support for Palestinians or criticized Israel’s war in Gaza. Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, faced removal proceedings after co-writing an editorial criticizing her university’s response to the conflict. An immigration judge terminated her case in January.
Last month, a federal judge in Boston went further, ruling that the administration had adopted an outright unlawful policy of silencing foreign-born academics through deportation threats. The Justice Department is appealing that ruling.
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back against Friday’s decision, calling the judge an “activist” and reminding that visas and green cards are privileges that can be revoked.
But for now, Mahdawi remains in the United States, a student, a voice, and a symbol of a legal battle that is far from over.
