US immigration detains another Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader
Mohsen Mahdawi, from the West Bank, is taken in by federal agents in Vermont, part of Trump administration’s crackdown on non-citizen activists
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — US immigration enforcement detained a Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader in Vermont on Monday.
The detention of Mohsen Mahdawi, a student originally from the West Bank, was part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on non-citizen activists that started with the detention of Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil last month.
Mahdawi was arrested when he went to an immigration office for an appointment related to his citizenship process, according to a statement from several Vermont legislators led by Senator Bernie Sanders. The statement said Mahdawi lived in Vermont and was a legal permanent US resident.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database said Mahdawi was in ICE custody, without specifying a location. ICE did not respond to a request for more information.
Several attorneys are representing Mahdawi in a federal court in Vermont. The judge in the case, William K. Sessions III, ordered that Mahdawi not be removed from the US or Vermont “pending further order” from the court.
Mahdawi was a vocal participant in the anti-Israel protests that rocked Columbia last year, appearing in media outlets like 60 Minutes.
A legal filing in the case said Mahdawi became a lawful permanent US resident in 2015. The document said that, before the October 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, Mahdawi had called for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that after, he protested against Israel’s military response, giving speeches at several demonstrations.
The legal filing said Mahdawi had co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union with Khalil, and the campus newspaper, The Columbia Spectator, said in November 2023 that he was a member of the campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.
As a member of the two groups, Mahdawi helped establish Columbia’s coalition of anti-Israel protesters, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).
The group led protests on campus that included harassment of Jewish students, an unauthorized protest encampment, building takeovers, clashes with police and property damage. CUAD has called for the “eradication of western civilization,” distributed Hamas material on campus, backed calls for violence against “Zionists” and said that “violence is the only path.”
Since Khalil’s detention, dozens of students around the US have had their visas revoked, been detained, or left the country, including other activists affiliated with Columbia.
The Trump administration has defended the crackdown on national security grounds and a response to campus antisemitism.
The justification and processes behind the crackdown have often been opaque. Critics, including Jewish groups, have expressed alarm over perceived threats to free speech and due process.
The Times of Israel Community.