WASHINGTON: A US judge in Vermont on Monday ordered the Trump administration not to deport a Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested upon arriving for an interview for his US citizenship petition.

District Judge William Sessions ordered President Donald Trump and other senior officials not to remove Mohsen Mahdawi from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was a Columbia University student who plans to return for a master’s degree in the fall of 2025, according to the request from his lawyers to keep him in Vermont.

“The government has made clear that it intends to retaliate and punish individuals such as Mr Mahdawi who advocated for ceasefire and ending the bloodshed in Gaza,” his lawyers said in a court filing.

His circumstances are similar to those of Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student who was detained in the New York area on March 8 and taken to a Louisiana detention facility for deportation.

A US immigration judge in Louisiana ruled on Friday that Khalil can be deported, allowing the Trump administration to proceed with its effort to deport foreign pro-Palestinian students who are in the United States legally and have not been charged with any crimes.

Trump 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 US foreign policy. Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

“You can’t disappear people for exercising their First Amendment rights,” US Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said in a video statement on Monday.

A friend of Mahdawi’s posted a video online of him being taken from the immigration office by Department of Homeland Security officers and placed in an official vehicle. Mahdawi flashed a pair of peace signs with his hands cuffed in front.

US Senator Bernie Sanders and others from Vermont’s congressional delegation labeled the detention “immoral, inhumane, and illegal,” saying the legal US resident should be afforded due process and released immediately.

“Mahdawi … walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process. Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plainclothes, armed individuals with their faces covered,” they said.

The Trump administration has resisted other court orders on immigration matters, saying for example it does not plan to seek the return of Salvadoran citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States after he was mistakenly deported and sent to a prison in El Salvador.

Published in Dawn, April 16th, 2025