US reinstates deportation proceedings against Palestinian green-card holder student
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Bilge Kotan
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Thu, 05/07/2026 - 06:23
Mohsen Mahdawi, a pro-Palestine activist who led anti-war protests at Columbia University, was detained for two weeks during his citizenship interview last year
Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi poses for a portrait inside Havemeyer Hall on the Columbia campus in New York City, 18 May 2025 (Reuters)
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The US Board of Immigration Appeals has reinstated deportation proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green-card holder who helped lead anti-war protests at Columbia University last year, his legal team have said.
Mahdawi, who has permanent US residency or "green card" status, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when he attended an American citizenship interview in Vermont in mid-April last year.
"The government continues to weaponize the immigration system to silence dissent," Mahdawi said in a statement shared by his legal team on Wednesday.
The 34-year-old, who was studying for a master's degree at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, was detained by ICE agents following his participation in campus protests against Israel's war on Gaza. He was released two weeks after his detention, but the deportation proceedings remained in place.
In February this year, a US immigration judge blocked the efforts by the Trump administration to deport the student after the government failed to authenticate a memo from the Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding his removal from the country.
Judge Nina Froes said the administration hoped to use as evidence in its case to remove Mahdawi from the US "by way of a photocopy of a document," adding that the filing is relevant to the case but that "it is not admissible as it lacked proper authentication".
The immigration judge was fired by the Trump administration last month after blocking Mahdawi's deportation.
Born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi moved to the US ten years ago.
He co-founded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia in 2023 alongside Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent figure in the pro-Palestinian student movement who was also targeted by the US administration.
According to The Intercept, Mahdawi stepped back from the campus protests in 2024 to build "bridges with Jewish and Israeli communities on campus".
Mahdawi asked Shai Davidai, a pro-Israel assistant professor who has been accused of harassing and intimidating pro-Palestine students at Columbia University, to meet him for coffee. Davidai reportedly left in the middle of their meeting.
Less than two months after the meeting, Davidai posted a video of Mahdawi to X (Twitter) in a thread accusing him and other protest organisers of being "antisemitic" and "pro-Hamas".
Last month, the Trump administration fired six judges, including those who blocked deportation cases against Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish pro-Palestine Tufts University student who was arrested for an op-ed article she co-authored.
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