Authorities have detained a co-founder of Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union as he was completing the final steps toward gaining U.S. citizenship in what appears to be part of a widening crackdown on college activists by the Trump administration.
Mohsen Mahdawi, who had permanent U.S. residency, was taken into custody Monday in Vermont when he went to a federal office building for a naturalization appointment, according to a legal filing his attorney submitted to block his transfer to a detention facility out of state.
Mahdawi’s Involvement in Student Activism
Mahdawi co-founded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia with Mahmoud Khalil, another activist and green card holder who was arrested in March and is fighting deportation. Both played roles in protests of the Israel-Hamas war that roiled the campus last year.
“As a result of his speech he’s being detained, I mean it’s outrageous,” said Luna Droubi, an attorney for Mahdawi, who was raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank but has lived in the U.S. for a decade.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump administration officials, in discussing Khalil, have asserted the government’s prerogative to expel noncitizens whose presence it considers damaging to U.S. foreign policy interests.
Support and Criticism of Mahdawi’s Arrest
Vermont’s representatives in Congress denounced Mahdawi’s arrest and called for his release.
“This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal,” Vermont’s Sens. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint, wrote in a statement. “Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”
Mahdawi appeared on “60 Minutes” in 2023 and was active in the Palestinian student protest movement at Columbia but says he had no role in organizing the largest and most raucous of the demonstrations in the following spring, according to his lawyer’s court filing.
He had finished his studies at Columbia and was planning to graduate in May and then return to the campus in the fall for a master’s degree. Mahdawi is a Buddhist and “believes in non-violence and empathy as a central tenet of his religion,” the court filing said.
Impact on Student Activism
Students around the U.S. have found their visas abruptly revoked as part of the Trump administration’s moves to punish protesters for the harassment of Jewish students during demonstrations at campuses around the country.
As part of that effort, the Department of Homeland Security announced April 9 that it would begin reviewing the social media of foreigners seeking to enter the country for any evidence that they have engaged in antisemitic activity. That prompted immediate concerns about how U.S. authorities would make the determination and whether any criticism of Israel or the war in Gaza would be enough to bar someone from the U.S.
