After more than 15 months in detention, Mohammed Rashid, a 29-year-old Palestinian man, could soon walk free in the United States for the first time.
Rashid fled Gaza in 2019 to escape from Hamas, according to his attorneys. Later, he boarded a ship as a stowaway and arrived in Rhode Island in July 2024, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody. When immigration officers interviewed Rashid, they confirmed he had a credible fear of persecution.
Just a few months later, a judge granted him asylum status. But ICE appealed the judge’s decision, and Rashid remained detained. He was held in three different facilities across New England before being transferred to Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility in Saint Albans at the end of August, where he still is.
But Judge Natalie Smith in Chelmsford Immigration Court, in Massachusetts, decided on Thursday to grant Rashid a release on bond, setting the amount at $20,000.
In a previous bond hearing at the end of September, Smith had denied bond, saying she didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the case. But recently, at the U.S. District Court in Vermont, Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford determined Rashid should be granted a second bond hearing in which the immigration judge considers only danger to the community and flight risk when deciding whether to grant Rashid bond.
On Thursday, Rashid joined the hearing virtually. His lawyers, Andy Pelcher and Emma Matters-Wood with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, were on the call, as well as Rashid’s uncle and Erica McMahon, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The government argued against Rashid’s bond request by attempting to prove that Rashid is a danger to the community and a flight risk.
McMahon said Rashid had several disciplinary reports, including for contraband and for attacking another detainee, which she argued showed he’s a danger to the community. According to McMahon, the fact that Rashid entered the U.S. as a stowaway, hiding in the trunk of a car that boarded a ship, shows that he’s a flight risk and would not comply with the orders of the court if released.
Pelcher, one of Rashid’s attorneys, said Rashid has no criminal record and the disciplinary report on contraband referred to toilet paper, while the other report related to an incident where a detainee punched Rashid and, when he was about to hit Rashid again, Rashid tried to stop him. Pelcher argued this demonstrates that Rashid is not a danger to the community, but rather, that he tries to de-escalate violent situations.
Pelcher also said that coming as a stowaway doesn’t show that Rashid is a flight risk and that he has every reason to stay in the country and defend the asylum status he obtained. Rashid also has family ties in the U.S., including an uncle who is a U.S. citizen and agreed to be his sponsor and give him employment and any necessary monetary support, Pelcher added.
Rashid, dressed in a green uniform, listened carefully as the judge talked through the arguments made by both sides before presenting her decision.
Smith agreed with Rashid’s attorneys that he doesn’t have any criminal history and the incidents that happened in detention don’t show that Rashid is dangerous, so she rejected the government’s argument that Rashid poses a danger to the community.
However, Smith acknowledged that Rashid could be a flight risk. Yet, she considered that Rashid has family ties in the U.S. and a reliable sponsor and decided to set the $20,000 bond to ameliorate the flight risk.
Hearing her words, Rashid leaned over, touching his forehead with his hand, and breathed a sigh of relief, holding back tears. He then turned to someone next to him asking if the judge said the bond was $20,000.
The hearing concluded with the government reserving the right to appeal the decision, and the judge saying the government has 30 days to do so.
DHS didn’t answer VTDigger’s questions about whether the department is planning to appeal the decision.
Pelcher said Rashid’s family plans to pay bond, and he’s expecting Rashid to be released on Friday.
“We thought that our position going in was very strong, but immigration law is really uncertain, so we were certainly nervous,” Matters-Wood said. “We are very happy. It’s been a long and emotional case.”
