The Trump administration used a citizenship interview as a pretext to arrest a Columbia University student of Palestinian descent.
Mohsen K. Mahdawi, a U.S. permanent resident who has lived in the country for 10 years, showed up to what he thought was his citizenship interview Monday at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester, Vermont. Instead, he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has begun deportation proceedings.
EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE: Columbia student and Palestinian Mohsen Madawi was just arrested during a visit to the immigration office here in Colchester, VT. More to follow. Footage by: Christopher Helali pic.twitter.com/I9JvPS2DLn
— Christopher Helali (@ChrisHelali) April 14, 2025The Columbia University student was a leader in the school’s protests against Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. Mahdawi was fearful of being deported, even before his friend, Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested last month by federal immigration agents.
Mahdawi was included on a list of students the far-right pro-Israel organization Betar gave to the Trump administration in the hopes that they would be deported. Betar and the group Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus at ColumbiaU also posted on social media multiple times about Mahdawi, tagging law enforcement agencies on each post.
After asking university officials to find him a safe place to live where he wouldn’t be detained by ICE, and receiving no response, Mahdawi went into hiding before receiving an email notifying him of a citizenship interview at the UCSIS office earlier this month. Mahdawi worried that it was a trap, and contacted his elected representatives in Vermont: Representative Becca Balint and Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch.
All three promised to remain on standby pending Mahdawi’s status after the interview, with Welch speaking to Mahdawi directly. In the end, it was a trap, and Mahdawi was detained with the same obscure immigration law used to detain Khalil and several other international students, including permanent residents: that their presence in the U.S. is a threat to the country’s foreign policy interests.
“Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity,” Mahdawi’s attorney Luna Droubi told The Intercept. “He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech.”
It’s particularly cruel to claim to offer citizenship to an immigrant, only to use it as a ruse to deport them over free speech issues. Mahdawi has not been charged with a crime, and pending his attorneys’ habeas corpus petition, is now in ICE custody. For this administration, his crime appears to be being a Palestinian student who used his right to free speech.
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