The federal government wants to resume deportation proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Vermont resident and pro-Palestinian activist who was held in prison for two weeks last year.
The Department of Homeland Security submitted an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals in late February after an immigration judge tossed out the case, according to a letter from Mahdawi’s lawyer that was filed Monday with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
“This is another cruel step in the government's continued retaliation campaign against our client,” said Cyrus Mehta, one of Mahdawi’s attorneys, in a press release. “Their attempts to punish him for his constitutionally protected speech about Palestine have been reckless and shameful.”
Mahdawi’s lawyers have filed a cross appeal asking the Board of Immigration Appeals to terminate the case with prejudice, which would prevent the government from refiling.
Mahdawi challenged his initial detention in a separate case that remains before the 2nd Circuit. A bail order in that case should shield him from being re-detained while the government’s new appeal is pending, according to Hillary Rich, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Vermont.
The federal government has asked the appeals court to reverse Mahdawi’s release on bail. The court has yet to issue a decision.
The feds have argued that Mahdawi’s pro-Palestinian activism threatens the United State’s foreign policy goals — an allegation Mahdawi and his attorney have repeatedly refuted. Mahdawi helped found the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia University in 2023, and took part in on-campus protests there.
Immigration judge Nina Froes determined last month that the federal government failed to properly authenticate a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that it used in its evidence against Mahdawi.
“This appeal is not about me,” Mahdawi said in a written statement. “I stand not only for the freedom of Palestinians or for my own constitutional rights, but for the sacred promise that in America no human being should fear losing their liberty for exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Mahdawi, a green card holder, was detained last April at a citizenship appointment in Colchester. He spent two weeks in a Vermont prison before a federal judge ruled that he should be released while his immigration case was pending.
The Department of Homeland Security could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday. It has previously said Mahdawi should have his green card revoked, citing a Windsor police report from more than a decade ago in which a local gun shop owner described Mahdawi as suspicious and alleged he made violent comments about Jewish people.
Mahdawi’s lawyers have said these allegations were untrue and that the FBI looked into them and closed the case.
Mahdawi, who graduated from Columbia University last spring and is now a graduate student there, grew up at a refugee camp in the West Bank and came to Vermont about a decade ago.
