Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident who has held a green card since 2015, was detained at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, his lawyers said.
According to the court filing, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. He recently completed coursework at Columbia and was expected to graduate in May before beginning a master's degree program there in the fall.
As a student, Mahdawi was an outspoken critic of Israel's response to the Hamas massacre of more than 1200 Israeli men, women and children in October 2023. He organized anti-Israel protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who recently was detained by ICE.
Khalil was the first person arrested under President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus anti-Israel protests. On Friday, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil can be deported as a national security risk.
Vermont's congressional delegation issued a statement condemning Mahdawi's arrest, saying that instead of taking one of the final steps in his citizenship process, he was handcuffed by armed officers with their faces covered.
“This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention,” said the statement from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint.
