A federal judge allowed for the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi on Wednesday after being detained for nearly two weeks following his arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Mahdawi, 34, is a pro-Palestinian activist who co-founded a university organization, the Palestinian Student Union, with fellow student Mahmoud Khalil, who has also been incarcerated. On April 14, Mahdawi was arrested while attending his U.S. citizenship interview.

Currently a green card holder, Mahdawi was born and raised in the West Bank and has lived in the U.S. for the last 10 years. He is expected to graduate from the Ivy League school next month and attend a master’s program at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs in the fall, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by his attorneys arguing that the federal government had violated Mahdawi’s right to freedom of speech.

Following Vermont U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford’s order of release, Mahdawi told a crowd of supporters and press outside the courthouse that his freedom, while his case proceeds, brings “a light of hope,” per ABC News.

“Judge Crawford, who ruled to release me against all of the heinous accusations, horrible attacks, chills of speech, First Amendment violations — he had made a very brave decision to let me out,” Mahdawi said. “And this is what justice is. And for anybody who’s doubting justice, this is a light of hope, a hope and faith in the justice system in America.”

“To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” he added.

People gather outside the Post Office in Brattleboro, Vt., on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, to show support for Mohsen Mahdawi, who was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court 11 in Burlington on Wednesday morning. | Kristopher Radder, The Brattleboro Reformer via the Associated Press

Crawford related Mahdawi’s arrest to McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s.

“This is not the first time that the nation has seen chilling action by the government intended to shut down debate,” the judge said during the Wednesday hearing, according to The New York Times.

But, the Trump administration has argued that the actions by Mahdawi and Khalil, who is currently detained in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Louisiana, are not just pro-Palestine, but antisemitic.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, posted on social media following Mahdawi’s release, “No judge, not this one or another, is going to stop the Trump Administration from restoring the rule of law to our immigration system.”

“When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country,” she added. “We have the law, facts and commonsense on our side.”

College protests: Free speech or antisemitic?

Days before he was arrested by ICE agents, Mahdawi was interviewed by CBS News, where he said he has compassion for the Palestinian people, but also Jews and Israelis. However, he also said “the accusation that the Palestinian cause and the pro-Palestine movement at Columbia was antisemitic, is a false accusation and it is (an) unjust accusation.”

Pro-Israeli demonstrators chant "Shame" in support of Columbia University assistant professor Shai Davidai, who was denied access to the main campus to prevent him from accessing the lawn currently occupied by pro-Palestinian student demonstrators in New York, Monday, April 22, 2024. | Stefan Jeremiah, Associated Press

His perspective counters that of the federal lawsuit filed by two Columbia University janitors last week after claiming to be held like hostages during the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall last April 29 by protesters who used padlocks and furniture to barricade themselves inside.

In the lawsuit, janitors Mario Torres and Lester Wilson claimed that more than 40 Columbia students and agitators not affiliated with the school “‘terrorize(d)’ both Torres and Wilson into the early morning of April 30th, assaulted and battered them, held them against their will, and derided them as ‘Jew-lovers’ and ‘Zionists,’” reported The Free Press.

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The Trump administration made an example of Columbia University last March after stripping the Ivy League school of its $400 million in federal funding for “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.”

Since then, the campus has announced that it has either suspended or expelled students involved in a pro-Palestine protest last year, stating that it is “committed to enforcing the University’s Rules and Policies and improving our disciplinary processes,” as previously reported by the Deseret News.

Multiple universities, including Harvard, have been accused by the Trump administration of failing to protect Jewish students during campus protests last year over the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip following the Oct. 7 attack against Israel by Hamas.

The lawfare between the White House and the Ivy League is ongoing.

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