Michael Hernandez
10 June 2026•Update: 10 June 2026
Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian graduate student studying at Columbia University, has appealed a court ruling that found him deportable under US law, his legal team said Wednesday.
Mahdawi is launching a challenge to the US Board of Immigration Appeals' (BIA) decision with the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. While the immigration court ruled in May that deportation proceedings could continue, a separate case winding its way through federal court has prevented authorities from re-detaining him as appeals continue.
"I come from a refugee camp in Palestine, where my family still resides. I know what it means to live without rights, without voice, without safety. America was the first place I ever felt true freedom and dignity,” Mahdawi said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups staging his defense.
"For over a decade, I have built my life here, loved this community, and chosen this country's ideals as my own. That is the country I chose -- and now the administration is abusing immigration law to silence me for speaking the truth about Palestinian suffering and genocide," he added.
Mahdawi, who led pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University and has lived in the US for more than a decade, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in April 2025 during a citizenship interview and spent 16 days in ICE detention.
He was released on bail later that month after filing a habeas petition in the US District Court for the District of Vermont in which he argued that he was wrongfully detained in retaliation for his constitutionally protected speech.
An immigration court judge dismissed the case against him in February after it found the government failed to support charges against him with proper documentation. That decision prompted federal prosecutors to appeal to the US Board of Immigration Appeals, which reinstated deportation proceedings.
Mahdawi's legal team informed the immigration judge that he would not be seeking asylum in the US and would instead challenge the effort to strip him of his lawful permanent resident status. The judge last Wednesday issued a new removal order against Mahdawi.
“The original immigration judge correctly dismissed Mohsen's immigration case before she had been fired, and the government cynically appealed the case within the Trump administration-controlled immigration court system, knowing that the BIA would reverse,” attorney Cyrus Mehta of Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners, PLLC, said.
“We look forward to vindicating Mohsen's First Amendment rights in the First Circuit Court of Appeals as well as the First Amendment rights of all other noncitizens living in the United States," he added.
