{"id":598086,"date":"2026-02-18T06:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/598086\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T06:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:52:16","slug":"immigration-judge-halts-trump-administrations-deportation-of-mohsen-mahdawi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/598086\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration judge halts Trump administration’s deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi,<\/a> a Palestinian graduate student who led protests at Columbia University against Israel and the war in Gaza. <\/p>\n

In a ruling made public Tuesday, the judge, Nina Froes, said she had terminated the case because of a procedural misstep by government attorneys, who failed to properly certify an official document they intended to use as evidence. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration may appeal the decision. But the ruling marked the latest setback for the federal government\u2019s sweeping effort to expel pro-Palestinian campus activists and others who expressed criticism of Israel. <\/p>\n

Last month, a separate immigration judge blocked the government\u2019s attempt to deport a Tufts University graduate student, R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk<\/a>, over an op-ed criticizing the school\u2019s response to the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. for the last decade, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He was arrested by immigration agents during a citizenship interview last April, but he was released two weeks later by a federal judge.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In the months since, the government has continued its effort to deport him, citing a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> arguing noncitizens can be expelled from the country if their presence may undermine U.S. foreign policy interests. <\/p>\n

Government attorneys submitted a photocopy of the document to the immigration judge, but they failed to certify it as required under federal law, the judge wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government\u2019s attempts to trample on due process,\u201d Mahdawi said in a statement released by his attorneys. \u201cThis decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahdawi has also mounted a separate case in federal district court arguing that he was unlawfully detained. That case remains ongoing, his lawyers said. <\/p>\n

In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, cast Mahdawi as a leader of \u201cpro-terrorist riots\u201d whose visa should be revoked. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":598087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[9600,12575,69,4526,57,409,410,405,403,50,257878,80,402,2068,235115,10425,61,370,103,107],"class_list":["post-598086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-activism","tag-colombia","tag-donald-trump","tag-gaza-strip","tag-general-news","tag-immigration","tag-marco-rubio","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nina-froes","tag-politics","tag-protests-and-demonstrations","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-tricia-mclaughlin","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states-government","tag-world","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116090316043194605","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}