Columbia University anti-Israel student activist Mohsen Mahdawi appealed on Wednesday an immigration court order to deport him to Jordan, according to his legal representation American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Mahdawi, who was arrested last April for undermining US foreign policy and government counter-antisemitism efforts with his pro-Palestinian campus activism, had been ordered removed to Jordan by an immigration judge last Wednesday.
The ACLU and other legal representatives on Wednesday appealed to the First Circuit US Court of Appeals. They have also petitioned on Wednesday to the Second Circuit, where his habeas petition is being deliberated. His legal team argued that his detention and censorship was punitive and served no legitimate purpose.
Mahdawi said that in a statement that as someone who was born in a Palestinian "refugee camp," he thought he would be able to build his life in the US with the rights he ostensibly lacked there.
"Now the administration is abusing immigration law to silence me for speaking the truth about Palestinian suffering and genocide. When a government weaponizes immigration to punish speech, millions of immigrants and citizens feel that blow," said Mahdawi. "This fight belongs to all who believe in democracy and every person willing to stand together in defense of the First Amendment. I take this fight to the First Circuit with love and faith - because the First Amendment is sacred, and I refuse to be silenced."
Deportation to continue after US immigration judge rules Mahdawi not removable
Deportation proceedings had been reinstated against Mahdawi in early May after the US Board of Immigration Appeals overturned a February decision by a US immigration judge to reject the government's efforts to deport him, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to prove he was removable.
“The original immigration judge correctly dismissed Mohsen's immigration case before she had been fired, and the government cynically appealed the case within the Trump administration-controlled immigration court system knowing that the BIA would reverse,” Mahdawi's attorney Cyrus Mehta said in a Wednesday statement with the ACLU. “We look forward to vindicating Mohsen's First Amendment rights in the First Circuit Court of Appeals as well as the First Amendment rights of all other noncitizens living in the United States."
The 34-year-old green card holder was arrested by DHS agents while he was attending a citizenship interview, with his deportation sought under the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
“The secretary of state has determined" that his “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise compelling US foreign policy interests,” was the explanation given for the move.
A judge ruled on the same day of his arrest that Mahdawi could not be removed from Vermont while the petitions against his arrest were being considered.
Petitions against Mahdawi’s detainment have argued that his arrest was a punitive measure over his activism, in violation of a resident’s First Amendment right to protected speech and due process.
The government said that its actions were legitimate under the INA and that the Vermont court lacked jurisdiction over the matter.
Mahdawi leads pro-Palestinian protests
Mahdawi has been a student and activist at various universities in the West Bank and the US since 2014. He was the head of the Fatah Student Movement at Birzeit University in the West Bank, and at Columbia, he was one of the leaders of pro-Palestinian protests. However, Mahdawi said that he stepped back from the role in March 2024.
Mahdawi reportedly co-founded the Dar: Palestinian Student Society alongside activist Mahmoud Khalil, a leader at Columbia University’s Apartheid Divest whose own deportation order is still being challenged.
ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project Deputy director Nate Freed Wessler said that "Mohsen should never have been detained for his speech."
"The government’s continued persecution of our client for his beliefs should send a chill down the spine of everyone in this country, because once we start allowing exceptions to the First Amendment for speech the current government doesn’t like, there’s no telling where the censorship will stop.”