BREAKING: Palestinian Student Arrested In Vermont During Citizenship Interview
After 10 years of living, studying, and building a life in the U.S., this was supposed to be a moment of transition for green-card holder Mohsen Mahdawi. But, it was a trap.
Mohsen Mahdawi showed up for what he thought was his citizenship interview.
After 10 years of living, studying, and building a life in the U.S., this was supposed to be a moment of transition—a step toward becoming an American citizen. Instead, it was a trap.
ICE agents from the Homeland Security Investigations division arrested him inside the USCIS office in Colchester, Vermont. Hours later, the process to deport him—to a place he barely escaped—was already underway.
Let’s be clear: Mohsen is not undocumented. He is a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, and a Palestinian refugee who grew up in the West Bank under military occupation. He’s also a student at Columbia University, where he became a prominent leader in the student protest movement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and accountability for Israel’s actions.
His lawyer, Luna Droubi, put it plainly:
“Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity… He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech.”
This is not an isolated incident. This is repression. It is targeted, calculated, and cruel.
The government appears to be using the same rationale it did to arrest Mahmoud Khalil and others under an obscure law that gives the Secretary of State the power to deport anyone deemed a threat to US foreign policy interest.
His lawyer, who says she’s been given no confirmation of his whereabouts, has already filed the petition challenging the legality of the detention alleging the government was violating his statutory and due process rights in direct retaliation for his political views.
The Cost of Speaking Out
For years, Mohsen worked to build bridges on campus—especially with Jewish and Israeli students. In fact, in December 2023, he reached out to Columbia professor Shai Davidai, a controversial pro-Israel figure, and invited him to coffee.
They met. The meeting ended abruptly.
Weeks later, Davidai posted a video of Mohsen to Twitter, framing him and other pro-Palestine organizers as antisemitic and pro-Hamas—part of a wider effort to discredit Palestinian voices and manufacture consent for their silencing.
What followed was a digital mob:
• Mohsen’s name and face began circulating on Canary Mission and Betar watchlists.
• He was smeared by a U.S. Congresswoman.
• A private WhatsApp group, made up of Columbia alumni and faculty, strategized about getting pro-Palestine students deported. And of course, Davidai was in that group.
Mohsen is now the ninth Columbia student targeted for deportation—part of a broader wave of revocations, raids, and removals intensified since Donald Trump’s return to power.
From Refugee Camp to Campus, Then to ICE Custody
Before all this, Mohsen spent over three weeks sheltering in place, afraid of being picked up by ICE like his friend and fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was abducted by immigration agents earlier this year.
Mohsen reached out to Columbia administrators, begging for a safe place to stay. But as was the case with Mahmoud Khalil, who had also sent an email asking for support, the university did nothing.
Eventually, ICE lured him out—not with a raid or a street arrest, but with a letter from the U.S. government, inviting him to take the final step in becoming an American.
It was an ambush.
Now, the U.S. government wants to deport Mohsen back to the occupied West Bank, where—under Israel’s expanding apartheid system—his life is in immediate danger.
A Life Marked by Loss—and Now, a New Threat
Mohsen lost his childhood best friend, his uncle, and two cousins in the Second Intifada. Since October 7, he’s lost two more cousins to the violence in the West Bank. His father’s store in Jenin was destroyed. His aunts’ and uncles’ homes have been razed by Israeli attacks.
In a CBS interview from 2023, he said:
“The fight for freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand-in-hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
And that’s the irony, isn’t it? This country loves that quote when it comes from Martin Luther King Jr. But when it comes from a Palestinian—especially one with lived experience of military occupation and state violence—it becomes a threat.
Now, Mohsen is in detention. His future is on the line. And his only crime?
Being Palestinian. And telling the truth.
This isn’t just an attack on Mohsen, who was also President of Columbia University’s Buddhist Association. It’s an attack on free speech, on dissent, on truth itself. And it won’t stop on college campuses. Because once repression becomes policy, no one is safe.
According to the website higher education, more than 1000 students at 170 colleges and universities have now had their student visa revoked by the State Department, seven of them like Mohsen, are from Columbia University.
Stay tuned. I’ll be updating this story as more details emerge.
That's flagrant abuse of Human Rights. And dirty, evil, corrupt. What I want to say is fascist.
Horrific.
As a side note; There is something to be said about zionist settler colonists who go to study abroad, and how they not only influence their surrounding environment culturally, but also target Palestinian students deliberately (the ones they become aware of, and who they identify competence in).
Stay away from these people. Build bridges with Jewish Americans, not with the zionist settler colonists.