Updated at 3:57 p.m.
BURLINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday released Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian Vermonter detained earlier this month by federal immigration authorities.
Mahdawi, a student organizer at Columbia University and a lawful U.S. resident for a decade, was arrested by federal agents in Colchester during an interview as part of his U.S. citizenship naturalization process.
“I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” Mahdawi told a crowd of cheering supporters outside the courthouse.
Attorneys for Mahdawi have argued he was detained in retaliation for promoting Palestinian rights and opposing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. At Columbia, he helped found the Palestinian Student Union. The federal government, meanwhile, has said Mahdawi should be removed from the country because his presence would “potentially undermine” Middle East peace talks.
Mahdawi’s is one of several high-profile cases involving the detention of noncitizen university students ostensibly for their campus activism in support of Palestinian human rights.
In March, federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, another prominent Palestinian organizer at Columbia University in New York City.
Late last month, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was detained by plainclothes agents on a neighborhood street. Immigration authorities quickly brought her to Vermont and eventually transferred her to Louisiana, where she remains detained. A Vermont federal judge had ordered the federal government to transfer Öztürk back to Vermont, but the government appealed that decision.
At Wednesday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ruled from the bench, allowing Mahdawi to walk free on his own recognizance after more than two weeks in a Vermont prison while his deportation case continues in immigration court.
Crawford nodded to the Red Scare and McCarthy era when the government targeted people for lawfully protected speech, periods he suggested resembled the present. “These are not chapters that we look back on with much pride,” he said.
The federal judge found no compelling reason for the government to continue detaining Mahdawi.
“Even another day of detention is not to be tolerated,” Crawford said.
In a last ditch effort to incarcerate Mahdawi, the federal government cited a roughly decade-old Windsor Police Department report describing statements the Palestinian Vermonter allegedly made to an Upper Valley gun store owner. The report led an FBI agent to speak to Mahdawi, and the case was soon ended, lawyers for both parties said.
Documents regarding the decade-old allegations were filed under seal but alluded to in open court by both sides’ attorneys. Crawford said he believed that the “shocking” allegations in the filings were “in large part fabricated.”
Michael Drescher, acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont, who is representing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies and officials in the detention case, argued that while people might disagree with the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Mahdawi, the court should not intervene in foreign policy decisions. Drescher also asked the court to issue a stay of Mahdawi’s release to allow an appeals court to consider the decision, a request Crawford denied.
Following his release, Mahdawi, wearing a suit and kaffiyeh scarf, greeted a crowd of tearful supporters, holding up his hands in peace signs. He told those gathered that he would continue to advocate for the Palestinian people and divestment from war.
“They arrested me. What’s the reason? Because I raised my voice, and I said no to war, yes to peace. Because I said, enough is enough. Killing more than 50,000 Palestinians is more than enough,” he said, continuing, “They wanted us to be silent, to continue to be silent. They wanted us to not be humans. Shame on them.”
Attorneys for Mahdawi celebrated Crawford’s ruling as a victory not just for their client but for noncitizens and American citizens alike.
“Some days are good days, and this is a very, very good day,” Lia Ernst, legal director of the ACLU of Vermont, said during a press conference following the hearing.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., led a rally at the U.S. State Department calling for Mahdawi’s release. In a joint statement Wednesday, she and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., expressed relief regarding the Vermonter’s release and called his detention a “grave injustice.”
“The Trump Administration’s actions in this case — and in so many other cases of wrongfully detained, deported, and disappeared people — are shameful and immoral. This is an important first step. We will continue the fight against President Trump’s assault on the rule of law,” Vermont’s congressional delegation said.
Crawford’s decision allows Mahdawi to reside in Vermont and attend school at Columbia University, where he’s pursuing his undergraduate studies and intends to enroll in a master’s program.
A remote hearing in Mahdawi’s immigration court case is scheduled for May 1, his attorneys have said.
