US Judge Blocks Deportation of Palestinian Student Mahdawi

An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian graduate student and activist at Columbia University. Mahdawi led campus protests against Israel and the war in Gaza.

The ruling, made public on Tuesday, was issued by Judge Nina Froes. She terminated the case after government attorneys failed to properly certify a key document they submitted as evidence, a required step under federal law.

Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. for ten years, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He was arrested during a citizenship interview last April but released two weeks later by a federal judge.

The government cited a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio claiming that noncitizens may be deported if their presence could harm U.S. foreign policy. However, the procedural error in submitting the memo led the judge to block the deportation.

“This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice,” Mahdawi said in a statement. He has also filed a separate case in federal district court claiming unlawful detention.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, described Mahdawi as a leader of “pro-terrorist riots” and said his visa should still be revoked, warning that activists will not stop their efforts.

This ruling follows a similar case last month when another student at Tufts University, Rümeysa Öztürk, avoided deportation after criticizing her school’s response to the Gaza war.