A federal immigration judge has terminated deportation proceedings against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Vermont resident and pro-Palestinian activist who was detained in prison for two weeks last year.
The immigration judge ruled last week that the government failed to authenticate a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was used as the basis for initiating the deportation case, according to a letter from Mahdawi’s lawyer that was filed Tuesday with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Rubio’s memo said that Mahdawi’s pro-Palestinian activism threatened U.S. foreign policy goals — an allegation Mahdawi and his lawyers have refuted.
“I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government's attempts to trample on due process,” Mahdawi said in a written statement. “This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.”
Mahdawi, a green card holder, was detained at a citizenship appointment in Colchester last April. He spent two weeks in a Vermont prison before a federal judge, in a decision that referenced the Red Scare and McCarthyism, ruled that Mahdawi should be released while his immigration case was pending.
Last Friday, immigration judge Nina Froes dismissed the immigration case on more technical grounds, determining the federal government hadn’t taken the proper steps to prove the Rubio memo was a valid document.
“We’re pleased that the court has terminated this witch hunt of a case,” Cyrus Mehta, one of Mahdawi’s attorneys, said in a written statement. “The government’s inability to even file the proper paperwork demonstrates how careless and reckless they are being in their policy of detaining innocent people for their speech.”
The immigration court’s ruling was issued without prejudice, meaning the government could appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals or try to file a new case, Mahdawi’s lawyers said in a press release.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Mahdawi, who graduated from Columbia University last spring and is currently a graduate student there, grew up at a refugee camp in the West Bank and came to Vermont about a decade ago. He helped found the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia and took part in on-campus protests before stepping back from activism in 2024.
