Guests
- Mohsen MahdawiPalestinian Columbia University graduate student who was detained over his support for Palestinian rights in April 2025.
- Nathan Freed Wesslerdeputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and part of the legal team representing Mohsen Mahdawi.
Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, whose arrest by masked and hooded ICE agents when he arrived for his naturalization interview to become a U.S. citizen made national headlines last year, is facing a new deportation threat after a three-judge panel overturned a lower court ruling that had freed him from ICE custody. Mahdawi was involved in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, where he was a student, demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He says he is being targeted solely for his advocacy.
“Enough is enough,” Mahdawi says. “Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom and equal rights between the river and the sea, and this government is trying to silence me.”
“That is just textbook censorship, and the First Amendment doesn’t allow it,” adds ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, a member of Mahdawi’s legal team.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the case of another Palestinian green card holder and activist born under Israeli occupation who’s also at risk of deportation from the U.S. after speaking out for Palestinian human rights. Mohsen Mahdawi is a Columbia University graduate student. Last year, masked and hooded ICE agents detained him when he appeared for what he believed would be a final naturalization interview in Vermont. He was held for 16 days before a judge ordered his release. Then, on Tuesday, a three-judge federal appeals panel overturned the lower court ruling that had freed Mahdawi from ICE custody. The ruling comes two months after the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against him.
AMY GOODMAN: After his release from ICE custody last year, Mohsen Mahdawi returned to Columbia University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He’s now a graduate student at Columbia. In addition to his Palestine advocacy, Mohsen is also the former president of Columbia University’s Buddhist Association.
Mohsen Mahdawi joins us now from Vermont. And we’re joined by Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, one of the legal team representing Mohsen.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mohsen, if you could start off by sharing your reaction to the three-judge panel overturning a lower court ruling that you should be freed from detention? The judge at the time who freed you was defiant, especially when the federal government threatened to arrest you if you crossed state lines. You had to come back to New York to graduate from Columbia. And he said you should be not only allowed to graduate, but talk to anyone you wanted to, etc. But now a federal judge ruling has overturned that decision.
MOHSEN MAHDAWI: Good morning, Amy and Nermeen, and to your audience.
This decision is very disappointing and, on a personal level, heart-wrenching, because I put my trust in the court and I continue to believe in the legal and in the court system in America. Nevertheless, I feel still hopeful, optimistic and resolved and determined to achieve justice for myself and for millions of people in this country, whether if they are green card holders or students, international students, whose — this action actually is chilling their speech and creating more fear among the community, that they know that the government can punish them and arrest them, detain them, and deport them possibly, just because the government disagree with their speech.
And this is what I’m fighting for. I’m fighting for justice, to be able to speak my truth and to be able to say, “Stop the ongoing genocide against my people. Enough is enough. Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom and equal rights between the river and the sea.” And this government is trying to silence me, targeting me, like what we heard from Brother Salah Sarsour. Also, solidarity to him.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nathan Freed Wessler, you are on Mohsen’s legal team. If you could talk about what this ruling means? And explain what a habeas petition is.
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: Yeah, habeas petition is one of the oldest forms of legal process we have — it dates from the 1200s in England — as a way to give judges the power to release people from unjust or unconstitutional or illegal detention.
Immediately after Mohsen was seized by immigration agents last year, his legal team filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. And within just a couple weeks, a federal judge looked at the case and ordered him released, saying that there was strong reason to believe that this detention was in violation of his First Amendment rights.
That’s critical, because, otherwise, what the government wants is to be able to hold people, noncitizens, in immigration detention facilities for months or years, while the very slow immigration court process plays out, to silence people by putting them behind bars just because the secretary of state or some other high-level official doesn’t like what they say. That is just textbook censorship, and the First Amendment doesn’t allow it. And it’s critical that judges have the power to get people out of jail in that situation.
And unfortunately, this panel of an appeals court this week overturned the district court judge’s ruling and said that, actually, federal court judges do not have the power to let people out of detention in this circumstance. Instead, Mohsen and people like him are supposed to go to immigration court before judges who aren’t actually independent judges — they’re employees of the executive branch — in a process that takes a very long time.
AMY GOODMAN: You mean immigration judges.
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: Immigration judges are, right? Go through that process, and then, at the end of that process, finally see a federal judge and make your First Amendment arguments. That’s just not tenable in a democracy. There’s no way to get back the time that someone has spent locked up in prison in retaliation for their speech.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And if you could talk about — you mentioned the Secretary of State Rubio’s memo last year. If you could explain what specifically it said and what section of the Immigration and Nationality Act it relied on?
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: Yeah, there’s an old section of federal immigration law that gives the government the power to exclude or deport people who are posing a serious threat to American foreign policy. And that’s what the secretary of state invoked as to Mohsen. But he invoked it based solely on Mohsen’s lawful speech. This two-page memo that the secretary of state signed makes that very clear. It’s only based on his lawful speech, his advocacy, as a student at Columbia University, about the rights of Palestinians and justice in Palestine. That cannot stand next to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects everybody’s freedom of speech, including noncitizens. If you’re in the country, you are protected.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, in other words, that is an — is that explicitly in the Constitution, that First Amendment rights are granted also simply to people who live in the U.S. or people who are U.S. green card holders or people who hold visas?
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: The First Amendment protects the right of the people, not U.S. citizens. And federal courts, including the Supreme Court, going back well into the last century, have said over and over that that includes noncitizens. And Mosen has been a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, for more than a decade, right? He is deeply rooted in the United States. If there’s anyone who deserves the protections of this part of the Constitution, it’s someone like Mohsen, who’s part of the community, who’s adding his voice to vital debates of the day.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Mohsen Mahdawi, can you talk about the day you were taken, when you were at — I mean, you were beyond green card holder. You were going for final approval to become a U.S. citizen. Can you talk about the day you were called to Vermont and you appeared for that final naturalization interview? And what happened to you there?
MOHSEN MAHDAWI: This is the message that the government is trying to send to everyone who’s considering to become a citizen, that after you believe in the Constitution and the promise that it has, and when you say, “I believe that. I want to belong to this country. This is the community that I have been in for a while. I rooted here. I created life here” — and I decided to apply for my citizenship, to become a citizen of this country. And when I was asked if I’m willing to protect and defend the Constitution of this country, by the end of my interview, I was handcuffed, detained and thrown in prison just because I spoke up for Palestine.
Now, what is ironic is I am still holding up the pledge that I did not take, because everything I am doing right now, fighting in the courts, I’m not fighting only for myself and for my freedom. I’m fighting because I believe in the Constitution of this country, because I believe that the First Amendment is called and named the First Amendment for a reason. It’s not the second. It’s not the third. It protects the pillars of democracy, to be able to express yourself, the freedom of expression. And exactly as Nate has mentioned, I was tested on, basically, a questionnaire that’s provided by the immigration branch, and one of the questions on those tests was “Who has the right to the First Amendment?” And it is stated there, and still there — I checked it out the other time — and it says everybody in this country.
But this is not the only dangerous thing, Amy. I think what I shared is this is a legal error. I’m going to share a bit why, because in the Declaration of the Independence of this country, what they say: the right that all men are created equal, and they have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. What is the right to liberty is exactly against what is happening right now, which is unjust detention and targeting of me.
And also think of the other DNA, something baked in the Constitution of this country, which is what Alexander Hamilton established. We’re talking 1788, Article 78, and it’s creating separation between the branches of the judicial branch and the executive branch to prevent abuse of power — what the government is doing right now, abusing the system of immigration, and we saw that evident. The judge who dismissed my case back, I believe, in March was basically — was fired by the executive branch. And they see all of these abuses that are taking place. So, this is why it’s dangerous.
And the last point I want to drive here is habeas corpus itself is also in the Constitution. If you check Article I, Section 9, habeas corpus is there to protect constitutional rights such as this one. So, this decision is undermining the basic freedoms here. And if they can do it to me, if they can intimidate me, detain me, put me in deportation, throw me in prison, they can do it to anybody in this country. And this is again connecting injustice in this country and injustice in Palestine. It’s the same fight. They’re trying to create different tiers of rights.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to quickly ask: You were former president of the Columbia Buddhist Association, a Columbia undergrad. When you walked across the graduation line on the stage, we were covering you. Your class, many stood up and gave you a standing ovation as you walked across the stage. Has Columbia spoken up for you?
MOHSEN MAHDAWI: I think that Columbia has — it needs, like — it’s in a situation of unconscious the existence, in terms of administration, not only that the community that knew me acknowledged my contribution and acknowledged Palestinian rights — that’s why thousands of students at Columbia has protested for Palestinian rights — but also the whole — the majority of this country right now sympathizes with Palestine and don’t want to support the Israeli genocide and apartheid.
So, Columbia has not supported me in any way possible, and not only Columbia, but also the mayor of New York City, who — it’s heartwarming to see that he is standing against Netanyahu and advocating for his arrest, but at the same time, he has not shared anything about my case. This decision was issued in New York City in the 2nd Circuit to a New York resident. And according to Zohran Mamdani, anyone who lives in New York is a New Yorker and deserves to be free and to live there. And I haven’t heard anything from him. I hope that we can hear something from him about this.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to also ask Nathan Freed Wessler — the three-judge panel that ruled 3 to 0 to overturn the judge’s decision who released Mohsen, the lead attorney is Debra Livingston. She is a member of the Columbia Law School faculty. She’s a law professor at Mohsen’s university. Your thoughts on this?
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: Well, I think the — you know, she and the other two members of the panel have just an incredibly crabbed, narrow understanding of the First Amendment and the right of habeas corpus. You know, this case is not over. We’ll be taking it to the full 2nd Circuit. That was a three-judge panel. The full set of judges can overturn that.
AMY GOODMAN: Twelve judges.
NATHAN FREED WESSLER: That’s right. And we’ll be going there to make our arguments yet again that without robust access to the federal courts when you’ve been thrown in jail in retaliation for your First Amendment rights, we just cannot have a functioning constitutional system. The judges who ruled this week gave that set of important principles incredibly short shrift, and that’s not the end of the story.
I think it’s important to acknowledge, too, that, you know, first the federal government came for people speaking out about Palestine, but that’s not where it’s ended, and that’s not where it’s going to end. You know, just a few weeks ago, we learned about a man named Beto Coral, Colombian immigrant, an asylum seeker, who was thrown into immigration detention because the secretary of state didn’t like that he was criticizing a right-wing presidential candidate in Colombia. There’s no — there’s going to be no end to the kinds of retaliation against protected, core First Amendment political advocacy and speech, if the courts don’t shut it down now.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Mohsen, just to go back to something that you mentioned earlier, I mean, your family is still living in a refugee camp in the West Bank. And you’ve drawn an analogy between what’s happening to you in the U.S. and what Israel does to Palestinians when they speak up. If you could elaborate on that, and also the fact that when this deportation order was given, you were not going to be deported back to Palestine, but to Jordan?
MOHSEN MAHDAWI: That’s right, Nermeen. And thank you for the question.
My family still lives and are under the apartheid system in the West Bank, in a refugee camp, where I was born and raised as a third generation. To this day, since 1948, are not only denied — my family are not only denied their right of return to their lands, but also they are denied their human — basic human rights. I lost a number of family members. And I’m talking, since October 7th, four cousins in the West Bank, and in the Second Intifada, I lost my uncle and my two other cousins. I lost my best friend in front of my eyes. And people are still suffering on a daily basis. The settler attacks are intensifying, the military violent occupation. And we heard from Salah Sarsour, who’s roughly the age of my father, so I can imagine my father in his shoes. And to confirm his experience, my father and all of my uncles and most of our male neighbors in the refugee camp were arrested when they were teenagers and kids by the Israeli occupation.
So, what is this government doing right now, and this administration? One, they are continuing to support the genocide and the apartheid system that Israel is imposing on the Palestinian people. Two, they are coming after everybody who is trying to speak up here for Palestinian rights. And three, they are denying my own identity. When the immigration judge issued a deportation order, a final order of deportation, they did not even acknowledge my identity as a Palestinian, and they said, “He should be deported to Jordan,” that I have no connection to Jordan whatsoever, except that I traveled to Jordan to come to the United States for the first time in my life, and it was one trip, and that’s it.
But I want to share to the audience and to everyone: I can be Palestinian. And I will continue to root myself in my Palestinian identity, and I am proud of it. And I can still strive and want to become an American, as much as I feel rooted here in Vermont. We’re like — I call it, we are like the hemlock trees here. The communities are interconnected, and Vermonters are sweet as the sap of the maple syrup. So, what I want to share with you, that my identity is not for negotiation. And I will continue to speak up, because my family in the West Bank and in Gaza still suffering, and they are in dear, dear need for healing from all of the trauma and pain that the Israeli occupation has caused them.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohsen Mahdawi, we want to thank you for being with us. We’ll continue to follow your case, Columbia University graduate student, Palestinian activist. And Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
Coming up, the Israeli American genocide scholar Omer Bartov. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: “When First Unto This Country,” Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman.
Media Options