By Gareth Vipers

A Palestinian student at Columbia University was detained by federal immigration officers after a U.S. naturalization interview, the latest arrest in the Trump administration's campaign against campus activism.

Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia last year, was met by masked ICE agents at a Vermont immigration office Monday and taken into custody, his lawyer said.

Mahdawi's case is the most recent in a series of detentions carried out by the Department of Homeland Security as part of the Trump administration's campaign against student protests and what it calls extremist ideology.

The administration has singled out a number of students in the crackdown, particularly those with links to pro-Palestinian demonstrations and activism.

An outspoken critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, Mahdawi was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, where he lived until he moved to the U.S. in 2014, according to court documents.

Representatives from Columbia and the Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mahdawi's legal team filed a habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court of Vermont Monday, arguing his detention was unlawful. The petition said Mahdawi was a lawful, permanent U.S. resident on the pathway to naturalization.

"This case concerns the government's retaliatory and targeted detention and attempted removal of Mr. Mahdawi for his constitutionally protected speech," the petition said.

The filing contests the "rarely used" provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked to justify the deportation of lawful permanent residents, arguing they pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy.

Vermont federal Judge William Sessions III granted the request, ordering that Mahdawi couldn't be removed from the U.S. or transferred out of Vermont. Mahdawi was being held in Vermont, his lawyer said.

Mahdawi was expecting to graduate from Columbia next month and had been accepted into a Master's program at the college's School of International and Public Affairs in the fall.

His detention echoes the case of fellow Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by ICE agents in March. Khalil, who is Palestinian and Syrian and also helped lead pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia last year, was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents acting on orders from the State Department to revoke his green card.

On Friday, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Khalil could be deported, an early step in what is expected to be a long legal fight.

"We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform after Khalil's arrest.

Several Ivy League schools have come under scrutiny for what Trump claims is harboring antisemitism and failing to protect Jewish students. The Education Department contacted 60 schools last month warning them of potential enforcement actions if they didn't step up efforts to protect Jewish students on campus.

The administration later said it was canceling roughly $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, demanding the school implement a series of measures. The school yielded to the government's demands to restore funding last month, though conversations are ongoing and the return of the funds isn't assured.

On Monday, the government announced a $2.26 billion freeze of Harvard's grants and contracts after the school declined to make changes to its governance structure.

Other schools with funding frozen or under review include Brown, Princeton, Northwestern and Cornell. Some universities have learned about actions against them first through media reports.

Write to Gareth Vipers at gareth.vipers@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 15, 2025 08:07 ET (12:07 GMT)

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