Lawyer for detained Palestinian activist says client is relieved he hasn’t been moved from Vermont

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A Palestinian man arrested at a Vermont immigration office during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship is relieved that he hasn’t been moved out of state and thankful for those supporting him, his attorney said Tuesday.

Mohsen Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident who led protests against the war in Gaza at Columbia University, was arrested Monday in Colchester, Vermont. A judge later issued an order barring the government from removing him from the state or country, and one of Mahdawi’s attorneys confirmed Tuesday afternoon that he remains in Vermont.

Attorney Luna Droubi said attorneys have connected with Mahdawi, though they have not received any information about why he was detained.

“He believes in peace and unity despite having witnessed atrocities many of us cannot comprehend,” she said in an email. “His detention that appears to be based on defamatory statements by non-governmental actors and opponents of Palestinian human rights should outrage us all.”

According to the court filing, Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. He recently completed coursework at Columbia and was expected to graduate in May before beginning a master’s degree program there in the fall.

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As a student, Mahdawi was an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and organized campus protests until March 2024. He co-founded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Khalil was the first person arrested under President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined campus protests against the war in Gaza. On Friday, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil can be deported as a national security risk.

The day before his arrest, Mahdawi told CBS News that any allegation that the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia was anti-Semitic was false.

“I want people to know that the work and the activism that we have done was centered in the energy of love,” he said.“I want people to know that my compassion extended beyond the Palestinian people. My compassion is also for the Jewish people and for the Israelis as well.”