A federal appeals court has reversed a judge's order that freed Mohsen Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian Columbia University student and organizer, potentially clearing the way for his arrest and deportation after more than a year of legal battles with the Trump administration.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled unanimously Tuesday that a federal judge in Vermont had exceeded his authority by ordering Mahdawi's release before his case moved through the full immigration court process. The decision upends an earlier ruling that had likened government efforts to remove him and other activists to McCarthyist repression.
Mahdawi, 35, was arrested by immigration agents in April 2025 during a citizenship interview as part of what the administration characterized as enforcement against noncitizens who opposed Israeli policy. He was freed two weeks later and completed his Columbia degree shortly after. The Board of Immigration Appeals has since issued a removal order against him, which he is appealing.
The appeals court made no judgment on Mahdawi's central claim that he was targeted unconstitutionally for his speech criticizing Israel. Instead, the panel determined that federal courts cannot intervene to halt removal proceedings before immigration courts exhaust their review. Any constitutional arguments, the court wrote, must wait until after the immigration system completes its work.
This ruling mirrors an earlier appellate decision against Mahmoud Khalil, Mahdawi's former Columbia classmate who faced similar detention and deportation threats over his activism. The pattern signals how appellate courts are handling student cases caught in the administration's broader crackdown on Gaza war criticism among noncitizens.
Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union, representing Mahdawi, disputed the timing question in a statement, saying the government cannot detain or deport their client while appeals continue. They framed the ruling as endangering free speech rights and suggested that relying on immigration courts overseen by the Trump administration offered little meaningful protection for constitutional claims.
During arguments before the appeals panel last September, government lawyers argued that habeas corpus protections invoked by the students should not apply to cases in the immigration system. Student attorneys countered that seeking relief from immigration courts controlled by Trump's Justice Department amounted to pursuing a remedy that offered no real hope.
Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and became a lawful permanent resident in 2015. A separate case involving Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University detained after co-signing an op-ed critical of Israel, awaits a Second Circuit ruling.
Author James Rodriguez: "The court's logic treats immigration proceedings as a sealed-off fiefdom where constitutional rights take a backseat to procedural order, but that's a luxury only noncitizens get."
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