Palestinian Columbia University student detained by ICE during citizenship ceremony

A second Palestinian student at Columbia University was picked up and placed into detention by immigration agents on Monday during his naturalisation ceremony.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who moved from the occupied West Bank to the US ten years ago, was at the US immigration services offices in Colchester, Vermont, when he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, The Intercept reported.

Mahdawi is being targeted for his pro-Palestine activism on campus despite the fact that he has not been active since the spring of 2024.

On Monday, Mahdawi's lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of his detention. They say the government has violated his statutory and due process rights by punishing him for speech related to Israel and Palestine.

He is facing deportation under a government provision that says they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

According to The Intercept, Mahdawi had played a leading role in the Columbia protests but stepped back to build "bridges with Jewish and Israeli communities on campus".

Mahdawi had reportedly asked Columbia professor Shai Davidai, a pro-Israel professor who has been accused of harassing pro-Palestine students at Columbia University, to get coffee. The two met, but Mahdawi later said that Davidai left in the middle of the coffee.

Less than two months after the meeting, Davidai posted a video of Mahdawi to Twitter in a thread characterising him and other protest organisers as "antisemitic" and "pro-Hamas". 

Since then, Mahdawi has been doxxed by Zionist groups like Canary Mission and Betar.

Mahdawi has been sheltering in place and living in fear for more than three weeks since ICE picked up fellow activist Mahmoud Khalil. He said he asked Columbia for help with a safe place, but they refused. 

Immigration authorities scheduled the citizenship test at the Colchester citizenship and immigration services office but took Mahdawi into custody when he arrived.

Now, Mahdawi is facing an order to deport him to the occupied West Bank, where attacks on Palestinians have been escalating from the Israeli military and Israeli settlers.

Mahdawi joins others like Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Alireza Doroudi, who are all being held for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on campuses.