MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Yesterday, Mohsen Mahdawi showed up for an appointment at an immigration office in Colchester, Vermont. He was told it was for his naturalization interview - the last step in his application for U.S. citizenship. But when he was there, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him. Now, he is the latest pro-Palestinian student to be picked up for potential deportation. NPR's Adrian Florido is following his case. Hey there, Adrian.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Tell me a little bit more about who is Mohsen Mahdawi.
FLORIDO: Well, he's an undergraduate student at Columbia University. He's a green-card holder - a legal, permanent resident who's lived in the U.S. for 10 years. He's Palestinian, from the West Bank, and he was a leader among pro-Palestinian activists at his campus. He was very close to Mahmoud Khalil, the first activist that immigration agents picked up in President Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters. After ICE arrested Khalil last month, Mahdawi's lawyers say that he feared he would be next. Right-wing, pro-Israel websites that track activists had been aggressively calling on the government to deport him.
KELLY: So it sounds like he was aware that he might have been on the Trump administration's radar. Tell me more about how ICE agents showed up to arrest him.
FLORIDO: Well, like I mentioned, he has a green card, but he had applied for citizenship. And a few weeks ago he got notice to come in for his naturalization interview - the final step in that process. His lawyers say he was worried. He was also hopeful that everything would go OK. Once he was at the interview, though, ICE moved in. His lawyer Luna Droubi told me that he was lured into a trap.
LUNA DROUBI: This is the last stage of things, and you are thrilled that you have reached the last step, only to be swept away in that final moment of excitement and detained in this way - solely because of his identity and solely because of the speech on behalf of Palestinians - his own people.
FLORIDO: She believes that this case, Mary Louise, is going to have a chilling effect, that anyone now seeking citizenship might be afraid to move ahead in that process.
KELLY: And what reasons is the government laying out for why he was detained? This was linked to his campus activism, or do we know?
FLORIDO: Well, the government hasn't yet made any statements about his detention. I reached out to ICE. They didn't respond. Mahdawi's lawyers believe that he was arrested for the same reason that Mahmoud Khalil was last month. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he had determined that Khalil's protests were antisemitic and ordered him deported because allowing him to stay in the country would undermine the U.S. foreign policy goal of fighting antisemitism around the world. Mahdawi's lawyers say that, in fact, he, like Mahmoud Khalil, has spoken out against antisemitism. Mahdawi spoke to CBS' "60 Minutes" in 2023.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES")
MOHSEN MAHDAWI: To be antisemitic is unjust - is unjust. And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against antisemitism go hand-in-hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
FLORIDO: We reached out to the State Department for comment to ask about why he might have been arrested, if they had any role, and we got no response.
KELLY: And just briefly, do we know where Mahdawi is now?
FLORIDO: His lawyer tells me that he's still in Vermont. She rushed to court to make sure ICE didn't whisk him away to another state. A federal judge has ordered ICE not to deport him or move him out of Vermont. His lawyers are now challenging his detention as unconstitutional retaliation for his free speech.
KELLY: That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thank you.
FLORIDO: Thanks, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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