By HOLLY RAMER and AMANDA SWINHART

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Palestinian pupil arrested as he was about to finalize his U.S. citizenship accused Columbia College on Thursday of eroding democracy with its dealing with of campus protests in opposition to the Israel-Hamas struggle.

Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, who led anti-war protests on the Ivy League college in New York in 2023 and 2024, spent 16 days in a Vermont jail earlier than a decide ordered him launched on April 30. On Friday, an appeals court docket in New York denied the federal government’s request to halt that order, saying the Trump administration’s jurisdictional arguments have been unlikely to succeed and that it hadn’t proven that Mahdawi’s launch has brought about irreparable hurt.

“Individual liberty substantially outweighs the government’s weak assertions of administrative and logistical costs,” wrote the three-judge panel on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.

The Trump administration has mentioned Mahdawi needs to be deported as a result of his activism threatens its overseas coverage targets, however the decide who launched him on bail dominated that he has raised a “substantial claim” that the federal government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees.

Mahdawi spoke to The Related Press on Thursday, a day after pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with campus safety guards contained in the college’s primary library. Not less than 80 individuals have been taken into custody, police mentioned.

Mahdawi mentioned as a substitute of being a “beacon of hope,” the college is inciting violence in opposition to college students.

“Columbia University is participating in the destruction of the democratic system,” Mahdawi mentioned within the interview. “They are supporting the initiatives and the agenda of the Trump administration, and they are punishing and torturing their students.”

Mohsen Mahdawi speaks throughout an interview on the ACLU of Vermont on Thursday, Could 8, 2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photograph/Alex Driehaus)

Mohsen Mahdawi speaks throughout an interview on the ACLU of Vermont on Thursday, Could 8, 2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photograph/Alex Driehaus)

Mohsen Mahdawi speaks throughout an interview on the ACLU of Vermont on Thursday, Could 8, 2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photograph/Alex Driehaus)

Mohsen Mahdawi, middle, speaks throughout a press convention asserting the launch of the Vermont Immigration Authorized Protection Fund within the Cedar Creek Reception Room on the Vermont State Home on Thursday, Could 8, 2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photograph/Alex Driehaus)

Present Caption

1 of 4

Mohsen Mahdawi speaks throughout an interview on the ACLU of Vermont on Thursday, Could 8, 2025, in Montpelier, Vt. (AP Photograph/Alex Driehaus)

Increase

A spokesperson for Columbia College, which in March introduced sweeping coverage modifications associated to protests following Trump administration threats to revoke its federal funding, declined to remark Thursday past the response of the college’s performing president to Wednesday’s protests.

The performing president, Claire Shipman, mentioned the protesters who had holed up inside a library studying room have been requested repeatedly to point out identification and to go away, however they refused. The college then requested police in “to assist in securing the building and the safety of our community,” she mentioned in a press release Wednesday night, calling the protest actions “outrageous” and a disruption to college students for ultimate exams.

Mahdawi, a authorized everlasting resident, was born in a refugee camp within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution and moved to the US in 2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Scholar Union with Mahmoud Khalil, one other Palestinian everlasting resident of the U.S. and graduate pupil who was arrested in March.

On April 14, Mahdawi had taken a written citizenship take a look at, answered verbal questions and signed a doc concerning the pledge of allegiance at an immigration workplace in Colchester when his interviewer left the room. Masked and armed brokers then entered and arrested him, he mentioned. Although he had suspected a entice, the second was nonetheless surprising, he mentioned, triggering a cascade of contrasting feelings.

“Light and darkness, cold and hot. Having rights or not having rights at all,” he mentioned.

Immigration authorities have detained school college students from across the nation for the reason that first days of the Trump administration, a lot of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas struggle. Mahdawi was among the many first to win launch from custody after difficult his arrest.

In one other case, a federal appeals court docket dominated Wednesday in favor of Tufts College pupil Rumeysa Ozturk, upholding an order to switch her from a Louisiana detention middle again to New England to find out whether or not her rights have been violated and if she needs to be launched.

Mahdawi mentioned his message to the Turkish pupil and others was “stay positive and don’t let this injustice shake your belief in the inevitability of justice.”

“People are working hard. Communities are mobilizing,” he mentioned. “The justice system has signaled to America with my case, and with Rumeysa’s yesterday with the Second Circuit, that justice is functioning and checks and balances is still in function.”

Mahdawi’s launch, which is being challenged by the federal government, permits him to journey outdoors of his house state of Vermont and attend his commencement from Columbia in New York later this month. He mentioned he plans to take action, although he believes the administration has turned its again on him and rejected the work of a pupil diplomacy council he served on alongside Jewish, Israeli and Lebanese college students.

“I plan to attend the graduation because it is a message,” he mentioned. “This is a message that education is hope, education is light, and there is no power in the world that should take that away from us.”

Mahdawi’s launch, which is being challenged by the federal government, permits him to journey outdoors of his house state of Vermont and attend his commencement from Columbia in New York later this month. He mentioned he plans to take action, although he believes the administration has turned its again on him and rejected the work of a pupil diplomacy council he served on alongside Jewish, Israeli and Lebanese college students.

“I plan to attend the graduation because it is a message,” he mentioned. “This is a message that education is hope, education is light, and there is no power in the world that should take that away from us.”

Initially Printed: Could 9, 2025 at 11:16 AM EDT