The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi after showing up at his naturalisation interview appointment in Vermont on Monday.
According to the New York Times, Mr Mahdawi, who organised several pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia University last year, had gone for what he thought was a routine appointment as part of the process of becoming a U.S. citizen when immigration officials detained him.
The whereabouts of Mr Mahdawi were unknown for several hours, prompting his mother, older sister and lawyers to start scrambling before he was later found at an immigration detention centre in Colchester, Vermont.
Mr Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droub, immediately filed a temporary restraining order to prevent federal officials from transferring him to a more conservative jurisdiction to face removal proceedings.
Subsequently, a Vermont federal judge, William Sessions III, swiftly granted that request, ordering that Mr Mahdawi, an outspoken critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, not be removed from the U.S. or transferred out of Vermont until he orders otherwise.
Mr Mahdawi, a green card holder for more than 10 years, is the latest permanent resident to be caught by the Trump administration’s deportation web following the high profile case of another pro-Palestinian protests organiser at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, whom an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled can be deported.
“This is their M.O.,” Ms Droub said. “They just continue to hide the individual to the point where their attorneys can’t quite understand or identify where to file. And so, you know, we’re operating blind, and they have all the information, and yet we’re tasked with attempting to file in the right jurisdiction.”
