“Ten-year legal U.S. resident and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi showed up at an immigration center in Vermont on Monday for what he thought was his naturalization appointment. Instead, ICE agents swooped in and “refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him,” according to a statement by Vermont lawmakers.”
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“Mahdawi co-founded the Palestinian student union at Columbia, and Mahdawi was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association for two years, according to the court filings. While Khalil is soft-spoken in public, Mahdawi comes off as the hothead of the duo. He has been frank about his struggles between feelings of vengeance and forgiveness.
“Radicalism is not Justice, and will not make Justice,” he wrote on Instagram in November 2024. “Justice is balanced, Justice is compassionate, Justice is empathetic, and Justice is transformative.”
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“Mahdawi hasn’t been accused of any crime, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers. Vermont District Court Judge William Sessions issued a temporary restraining order preventing ICE from removing Mahdawi from Vermont.”
“In general, a foreign national is neither excludable nor deportable “because of the alien’s past, current, or expected beliefs, statements, or associations, if such beliefs, statements, or associations would be lawful within the United States.” But the INA makes an exception when “the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien’s admission would compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.” The only statutory requirement to invoke that exception is that the secretary of state “has reasonable ground to believe” that someone’s “presence or activities” would “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.””
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“Giving “a single government official sweeping and nearly unchecked power to pick and choose individuals to deport based on beliefs alone, without alleging a single crime, crosses a line that should never be crossed in a free society,” Creeley said. “The only ‘crime’ the government has offered [is] that Mahmoud Khalil expressed a disfavored political opinion. If that’s a crime in America, every single one of us is guilty.””
“Authorities have detained a co-founder of Columbia University’s Palestinian Student Union as he was completing the final steps toward gaining U.S. citizenship in what appears to be part of a widening crackdown on college activists by the Trump administration.
Mohsen Mahdawi, who had permanent U.S. residency, was taken into custody Monday in Vermont when he went to a federal office building for a naturalization appointment, according to a legal filing his attorney submitted to block his transfer to a detention facility out of state.”
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““As a result of his speech he’s being detained, I mean it’s outrageous,” said Luna Droubi, an attorney for Mahdawi, who was raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank but has lived in the U.S. for a decade.”
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“Mahdawi appeared on “60 Minutes” in 2023 and was active in the Palestinian student protest movement at Columbia but says he had no role in organizing the largest and most raucous of the demonstrations in the following spring, according to his lawyer’s court filing.
He had finished his studies at Columbia and was planning to graduate in May and then return to the campus in the fall for a master’s degree. Mahdawi is a Buddhist and “believes in non-violence and empathy as a central tenet of his religion,” the court filing said.”
“It’s not inherently wrong for the federal government to refrain from funding an extremely wealthy private institution of higher education, especially one with an endowment of $14.8 billion. But the Trump administration isn’t trying to save money for taxpayers—it’s using the money as leverage to make the university police student expression.”
“President Donald Trump says he is determined to deport “terrorist sympathizers,” including legal permanent residents as well as foreigners with student visas. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the targets have a history of “tearing things up” on “our university campuses” by starting riots, taking over buildings, and harassing people.
While those descriptions seem accurate as applied to at least some of the foreign students whom Rubio wants to expel, they are less apt in other cases. Contrary to the way Trump and Rubio portray this initiative, neither rhetorical support for terrorism nor disruptive conduct is necessary to invoke the sweeping legal authority on which they are relying, which applies to any noncitizen whose “presence or activities” Rubio thinks could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
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That gloss rings true as applied to an activist like Taal, who went beyond praising Hamas (which on its own would be constitutionally protected speech) by engaging in conduct that interfered with other people’s use of Cornell facilities, to the point that he was banned from campus. But Rubio’s description is more than a little misleading as applied to a student like Ozturk, who seems to have done nothing more than express views that offend Rubio.”
The Trump administration are not free speech extremists.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the State Department has revoked more than 300 student visas, as the Trump administration continues to detain and deport pro-Palestinian student activists at universities across the country.”
“The government now claims “he had willfully failed to disclose his membership in several organizations, including a United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees, when he applied to become a permanent U.S. resident last March,” reports The New York Times. “The government also said that Mr. Khalil failed to list his continuing employment with the Syria Office in the British Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, after 2022.” If these allegations are true, they may put the deportation on firmer footing: It is easier for the authorities to argue that the First Amendment isn’t a relevant factor when the issue is whether Khalil disclosed relevant information during a green card application.
But even if that is true, the Justice Department has shown its true motivation, even if it may be able to weasel out of the hole it’s dug. Since it told The Free Press that “the allegation here is not that he was breaking the law” and suggested that “he was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the U.S.,” it sure seems obvious that it was Khalil’s role in the Columbia protests that attracted ICE agents initially. If officials can now find a better pretense to deport him, that may pass more legal muster, but they already made clear that this is retribution for protest. This will have a chilling effect on speech. And if they legitimately believed he was a threat, they should have actually spent the time to substantiate this.”
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“As for what actually happens to Khalil, it’s not clear these new allegations will make much of a difference: “In order to deport Mr. Khalil on the basis of the new allegations, the government would have to convince an immigration judge that any failure to disclose the relevant information was willful, and that it would have made a difference in his chances of receiving legal permanent residency status””
“Does it matter that Khalil is not a U.S. citizen? In the 1945 case Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court held that “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” That case involved a longtime legal resident from Australia who was deemed deportable based on the allegation that he had been affiliated with the Communist Party.
“Once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country, he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders,” Justice Frank Murphy wrote in a concurring opinion. “Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens.””
“the First Amendment is understood as a general restriction on the government’s behavior, as The Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin points out.
“The First Amendment’s protection for freedom of speech, like most constitutional rights, is not limited to US citizens,” he writes. “The text of the First Amendment is worded as a general limitation on government power, not a form of special protection for a particular group of people, such as US citizens or permanent residents.”
Setting aside the constitutional issue, the detention of a student activist for engaging in what would clearly be considered First Amendment–protected activity under other circumstances is very alarming. If the State Department wishes to proceed with this course of action, the burden is on the government to sufficiently explain why Khalil should be deported. Authorities must persuasively demonstrate that his conduct crosses some very, very red line.
Yet, at present, the government’s justifications don’t come anywhere close to satisfying such a requirement. On the contrary, the official explanation for Khalil’s detention is so woefully insufficient as to be laughable—except, of course, this matter isn’t funny at all.”
“The administration maintains that it has the power to revoke Khalil’s green card and deport him because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests. Indeed, it’s becoming clear that Khalil was targeted because of his speech, rather than any other conduct that might be reasonably construed as criminal behavior.”