A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday ruled that a federal judge in Vermont should not have ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist, from immigration custody last year. 

Mahdawi, a green card holder who lives in the Upper Valley, was arrested in Colchester in April 2025 while attending a U.S. citizenship interview. He was held in a Vermont prison for federal immigration authorities for more than two weeks until Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford ruled that he should be released on bail. 

But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which had for months been reviewing a Trump administration challenge of Crawford’s decision, said Tuesday that Mahdawi’s case should have been adjudicated in the federal immigration court system before Crawford took it up. 

Immigration courts are separate from the federal judicial system and staffed by employees of the executive branch.

This story will be updated.