Trump administration restarts deportation process against Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi

Cayla Bamberger, New York Daily News on Mar 16, 2026

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NEW YORK — The Trump administration has restarted efforts to deport Columbia University graduate student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi after an immigration judge tossed the case against him, his attorneys said in a court filing Monday.

Mahdawi, a lawful permanent resident, was arrested last April at his U.S. citizenship test and held in ICE custody for more than two weeks. He asked a federal judge to order his release, alleging the government had violated his constitutional free speech rights. He was let go later that spring as the deportation process continued.

The immigration judge eventually terminated removal proceedings because the administration did not authenticate a memo from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that claimed Mahdawi was a threat to U.S. foreign policy, which Mahdawi has denied.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Feb. 25 asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reconsider the immigration judge’s decision, according to the filing in U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit, which is also reviewing a parallel constitutional case. DHS did not immediately comment.

“This appeal amounts to them grasping at straws,” said Cyrus Mehta, Mahdawi’s immigration lawyer. “We look forward to the day that Mohsen can focus his attention where it belongs: on his studies, on his advocacy for peace, and on seeking justice.”

The appeal comes weeks after Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked President Trump to permanently drop the case against Mahdawi during an unrelated meeting in Washington, D.C. Mamdani also urged Trump to release Ellie Aghayeva, another Columbia student with no known involvement in the protests, which the president did later that day.

City Hall did not immediately return a request for comment.

Mahdawi’s attorneys have also filed a “cross-appeal,” asking the Board of Immigration Appeals to terminate the case once and for all, and block the federal government from refiling the case.

Mahdawi, 35, was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank. At Columbia, he co-founded a Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another target of Trump’s crackdown on international student protesters, though Mahdawi’s participation in campus activism largely ended before the spring 2024 Columbia encampment, according to court documents.

In interviews, Mahdawi’s friends have said he was taking a class on peacemaking and negotiations, and working on a 65-page framework for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the time of his ICE arrest.

Mahdawi has since come to see his U.S. naturalization interview as a “trap,” alleging in The New York Times that the federal government “dangled the prospect of becoming an American citizen, only for masked agents to apprehend me.”

He graduated from Columbia last spring with an undergraduate degree in philosophy, before returning to campus this school year for a master’s degree in international and public affairs.

“No human being should fear losing their liberty for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Mahdawi said Monday.

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(With Josephine Stratman.)

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