Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released from U.S. immigration custody on Wednesday, after a judge ruled he should be free on bail to challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests.
Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was arrested earlier this month upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. A judge swiftly ordered President Donald Trump’s administration not to deport him from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont.
After two weeks in detention, Mahdawi walked out of the federal courthouse in Burlington, Vermont, after U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered his release at a court hearing on Wednesday, according to his lawyers.
Mahdawi’s release marked a setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian foreign university students, though other students remain in jail.
“I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his cabinet, I am not afraid of you,” Mahdawi said after he emerged from the courthouse, dozens of protesters waving Palestinian flags chanting “no fear” and “yes love.”
“This is a light of hope, hope and faith in the justice system in America,” Mahdawi said of Crawford’s decision to release him.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
Trump administration officials have said student visa holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Mahdawi is here in the United States legally and acted legally,” Vermont’s U.S. Congressional delegation of Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Peter Welch and Representative Becca Balint said in a statement.
“The Trump Administration’s actions in this case – and in so many other cases of wrongfully detained, deported, and disappeared people – are shameful and immoral.”
Other protesters in similar circumstances include Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk. Both Khalil and Ozturk remain in custody and have not been charged with any crimes.
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