Mohsen Mahdawi has come a long way since being released from a Vermont jail in April 2025. Mahdawi is a Palestinian student at Columbia University and a green card holder who lives in Vermont. He co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union and was president of the Columbia University Buddhist Association.
The Trump administration has relentlessly pursued Mahdawi. Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified Mahdawi’s arrest last year by saying that his advocacy of Palestinian human rights could “potentially undermine” the Middle East peace process.
U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail nearly a year ago, comparing his arrest to the unlawful repression of free speech under McCarthyism. The Trump administration appealed, and the case, Mahdawi vs. Trump, was argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in September. A decision is pending.
In a separate ruling in February, an immigration judge in Massachusetts blocked Mahdawi’s deportation. Last week the judge, Nina Froes, was fired by the Trump administration as part of a purge of immigration judges who stand in the way of the administration’s mass deportation program.
Mahdawi said Froes was “courageous” and that her firing is part of “intimidation and … punishment for anybody who disagrees with [the Trump administration], including their own judges.”
“This is reminding me what the Nazis have done to judges who were impartial in Germany,” said Mahdawi.
Despite his arrest and court cases, Mahdawi graduated from Columbia University last spring with a degree in philosophy. Fellow students cheered him as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma. He is now enrolled in a master’s program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is also writing a book about activism.
I spoke with Mahdawi on April 14, the anniversary of his arrest. He told me that the attacks on him were a harbinger of other assaults by the Trump administration.
“The deterioration and destruction of the U.S. Constitution and of civil rights in this country that took place when the government came after me and other student activists are motivated by the same reason that the war is taking place in Iran, and that is shielding Israel from any criticism,” he said.
“The destruction in Iran (and) Lebanon is just the U.S. supporting blindly Israel's agenda and being dragged into a war that it doesn't need.”
“I believe that peace is possible without the use of violence,” said Mahdawi.
Mahdawi said he believes the world is caught in a struggle between “the energy of fear and the energy of love. And the energy of fear is what is motivating Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and … the whole system that is trying to shun people and shut them down and scare them and intimidate them. This is why they basically wanted to make an example of me and many other students and why they are going after journalists and immigrant communities — to incite fear.”
When Mahdawi walked out of jail in Vermont a year ago, he declared to President Trump: “I am not afraid of you.” This week he noted that Pope Leo also said recently, “I have no fear … of the Trump administration.”
“We have to function from a place of love, not a place of fear, and hold those who are causing harm accountable for their actions,” said Mahdawi.
“I am not fighting to stay in this country,” Mahdawi told me. “I'm fighting for justice in this country. And my fight is connected to the fights of so many other people who want to see justice in this country.”
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