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Mohsen Mahdawi is a free man. That has not come easily. It has taken a national human rights campaign to free Mahdawi and keep him free. He is among the first people in the country to be freed from detention under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Mohsen Mahdawi is a Columbia University student and Palestinian activist who was arrested in Vermont by immigration agents last month at what he was told would be a citizenship interview. Mahdawi, 34, grew up in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but is now a legal permanent resident living in Vermont. He is a practicing Buddhist and was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association and he co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union.
Mahdawi’s immigration interview on April 14 was supposed to be the last step in his 10-year journey to become a U.S. citizen. But it was a trap. Upon completing his interview, he was whisked away in unmarked SUVs by armed and masked federal agents. He was accused by the State Department of posing a threat to national security over his pro-Palestine campus activism.
Mahdawi was keenly aware of President Trump’s ominous crackdown on immigrants. Other international students who were in the U.S. with valid student visas or were legal permanent residents were being snatched off the street and quickly shipped to a prison in Louisiana, where judges were more sympathetic to the Trump administration’s effort to deport them.
Mahdawi alerted Vermont’s congressional delegation to his fear of being arrested and he contacted attorneys to act swiftly in the event he was detained. Just as he anticipated, the federal agents who arrested him hustled him to the Burlington airport where he was to be put on a plane to Louisiana. This followed a well-worn script — until Mahdawi missed his flight. That gave time for his lawyers to make an emergency appeal to Vermont federal Judge William Sessions III, who immediately issued an order blocking the Trump administration from removing him from Vermont. Mahdawi was in immigration custody in Vermont for 16 days. On April 30, Vermont Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail, comparing his arrest to the unlawful repression of free speech under McCarthyism.
The Trump administration is continuing its effort to deport Mahdawi. For now, he can continue his fight for freedom outside of prison. (Disclosure: the ACLU of Vermont, where I am a board member, is part of Mahdawi’s legal team.)
Mohsen Mahdawi is planning to attend his graduation from Columbia University next week and to begin graduate studies at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in September.
I met Mohsen Mahdawi near his home in the rural Upper Connecticut River Valley. He said he preferred to be outside in nature, his sanctuary. He asked me to join him on a favorite hike through a forest and up a hillside with beautiful views.
Following is an excerpt of our Vermont Conversation edited for length and clarity. You can hear the full conversation at the audio link at the top of this article.
David Goodman
You have just come out of several weeks in jail. What does it mean to you to be out here?
Mohsen Mahdawi
My most beautiful memories of being in harmony, at peace and feeling tranquility happened in these mountains. This is the same path that I walked when I was processing my pain and going through healing for my trauma. Even though I was in prison, I was not imprisoned. I was able to imagine myself when I was in the cell, walking, hiking the forest, laying in a hammock, hearing this beautiful sound of water.
David Goodman
What trauma are you referring to?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I’m referring to the journey of my childhood, of the little Mohsen who grew up in a refugee camp, who has lived through war, who has been horrified by seeing loved ones being killed unjustly at the hands of the Israeli army. And the little Mohsen who thought many times that his life is about to be over, lived in trauma and pain and fear. The first place where I was able to process and to sit with those memories and the place that I felt safe, which I’m grateful for, was Vermont.
David Goodman
How did growing up in a refugee camp in the West Bank lead you to Columbia University?
Mohsen Mahdawi
Fire and pressure form something beautiful. The fire of injustice and the pressure of living in such difficult conditions, under basically military occupation and apartheid, pushed me forward. The magic recipe really is hope and education. I never gave up and I always believed in the idea of justice.
My uncle, who was killed on my 11th birthday, was inspiration to remind me that my only way is education, that education is light, education is hope.
David Goodman
What will it mean to you to walk across the stage at Columbia to get your bachelor’s degree?
Mohsen Mahdawi
It means many things. I will be walking and thinking of my uncle’s spirit and praying that it’s hovering above me and seeing that the advice that he gave me has fueled my energy to get to this point. I want to also be an uncle to every child who grows up in severe and difficult conditions giving the same message that my uncle gave me, that education is light and education will open many paths for you to change the reality. And the last part is a message to the tyrants who don’t want me to graduate, who want me to lose this opportunity for making peace and bringing justice to my people and to both Israelis and Palestinians. It’s a message that no power in this world can take away from me, my power for imagination to see a peaceful future for the children, Israelis and Palestinians.
David Goodman
You when you emerged from prison in Vermont two weeks ago, you addressed President Trump directly and said, “I am not afraid of you.” What did you mean by that?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I wanted to say that intimidation, bullying, harassment will not stop me from working for this great cause for humanity, for democracy, for the Palestinian people. It is my life, it’s my family’s life, and I refuse to be silenced.
David Goodman
You were going right to the heart of the power of an autocrat, which is fear. You were denying him that power.
Mohsen Mahdawi
That’s exactly right. Nobody can take away from me the power of love that I have for the world or my ability to envision and imagine a better future, or my voice that I have to share with the world. The message was not only to President Trump, but also it was to my fellow students and Americans, the people who feel the intimidation and fear. I wanted to tell them that nobody can actually take power away from you unless you let them. This is the big fight between love and fear, intimidation, harassment, or yearning for peace and unity and equality.
David Goodman
Is there anything you’re afraid of?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I wouldn’t say I’m afraid of it, but if I die tomorrow, I would be really sad of not making peace between Palestinians and Israelis and changing the reality for the children on the ground, to change the direction from war and bloodshed into peace and coexistence.
David Goodman
Why do you believe you were targeted for deportation?
Mohsen Mahdawi
They are putting me through this, treating me unjustly, restraining my freedom, threatening my existence in this country and threatening my educational journey just because I’m advocating for human rights, for the end of war and for peace. One might think it is about Palestine, but the matter now is about our humanity. Who is the next person who is going to get detained? They started with the visa holder, then I am a green card holder, then they will come to naturalized citizens, and then to the citizens. And it’s the same in Palestine, they come after the people in Gaza, now they’re going after the people in the West Bank. We must stand up against it and say no to it, divest from war, invest in peace, and strengthen international law.
David Goodman
Secretary of State Rubio wrote in a memo justifying your arrest that your activism “could undermine the Middle East peace process by reinforcing antisemitic sentiment,” and when you were released from jail, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security said, “When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.” What is your response to those two statements?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I’ve been advocating for justice and peace. I’ve been a peacemaker on campus. Yes, I’m a strong advocate for the Palestinian rights, but I have partners, mainly Jewish and Israeli partners. See the letters that have been written in my support, the protests that Israelis actually did in New York City in support of me and listen to the Jewish professors at Columbia University. They’re weaponizing the idea of antisemitism for their own purposes. They’re trying to intimidate people and to justify their unjust detention.
David Goodman
What is your feeling about violent resistance?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I never advocated for violence. I believe in nonviolence as the best path towards peace and justice. I believe like Gandhi believes that truth and justice have their own power. I advocate for compassion and empathy. The Jewish trauma and the Palestinian trauma are intertwined and interconnected.
David Goodman
Judge Crawford in releasing you cited your ties to your community and noted that the court had received more than 90 statements and letters from community members, academic experts and professors, “many of them Jewish,” attesting to your character. What did that mean to you?
Mohsen Mahdawi
I felt so grateful for all of the love and support from the Jewish community, from my professors, from many people who I didn’t know before. What matters really is the light of hope that those letters signal to Americans as a whole. It breaks it through this polarization of one side or the other, Israelis and Palestinians. The reality is we are human beings who are yearning to see a diplomatic resolution for this long bloody conflict. I joke sometimes and say I don’t think I’ve ever felt that much love and support anywhere else as much as I felt inside the cell.
David Goodman
You speak of hope and love, and yet so much suffering has gone on in your life and is going on in the West Bank and in Gaza, with over 50,000 Gazans killed, some 1500 Israelis killed. What gives you this ability to stay hopeful?
Mohsen Mahdawi
It is my practical experience. One of my earliest realizations in America was that if there is an enemy, it would be fear, ignorance and segregation. What people who are in power are trying to do is to tell us that we should fear the other, whether if it’s Republicans fearing Democrats, black fearing white, Palestinians fearing Israelis and vice versa. When we come together, we realize we are way more than what divides us. Actually our difference enriches our existence. We just have to break through fear, with empathy, understanding, through feeling each other’s pain.
David Goodman
Vermont may be the first place in America where judges freed people in immigration custody, freeing you and Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk.
Mohsen Mahdawi
Vermont is the place in America that is becoming the beating heart of hope and life. It signals to Americans all 50 states that the system of democracy is still functioning. It is and communicating to everybody don’t give up, because we have a justice system that holds the system with checks and balances.
David Goodman
What do you hope to do after you’re finished with your education?
Mohsen Mahdawi
My purpose in life is to make peace. There is no peace without justice, so to figure out a method with restorative justice, to see children living in a peaceful future and equality. This is what I dedicated my life for. This is why I went back to school. I see myself as a peacemaker, as a diplomat.
David Goodman
What is your message to other immigrants who are afraid right now?
Mohsen Mahdawi
You’re not alone. There are many other people who are like you, feeling afraid from the direction that politics is going in this country. In every situation of darkness, there is always light.
Don’t be intimidated by the fear but try to understand it and channel it in a beautiful, creative way.
I choose to see the good people in this country who are working tirelessly to change the situation. Vermont has showed up in an unbelievable, beautiful, inspiring way, and it is paving away for the rest of the country what it means to have a community that is supportive and empathetic and kind and welcoming.
