A Palestinian green card holder who protested the war in Gaza was reportedly arrested by Homeland Security agents after being called into the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont for a citizenship test.
A video shared by CBS News correspondent Lilia Luciano showed Mohsen Mahdawi being taken into custody outside the office in Burlington on Monday. Mahdawi, a Columbia University graduate student, had led protests against the war last year.
"Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity," Mahdawi's attorney Luna Droubi told The Intercept. "He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech."
According to The Intercept, Mahdawi became the target of Zionists and one member of Congress after pro-Israel Columbia professor Shai Davidai posted a video of him in December 2023.
Mahdawi's arrest followed the detention of fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil, whom the Trump administration was seeking to deport.
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"Instead of taking him off the street, however, immigration authorities scheduled the citizenship test at the Burlington USCIS office and took Mahdawi into custody when he arrived," The Intercept reported.
Now, he also faces deportation.
"It's kind of a death sentence," Mahdawi explained. "Because my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way."
In an interview with "60 Minutes" last year, Mahdawi decried anti-Semitism.
"To be anti-Semitic is unjust," he observed. "And the fight for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti-Semitism go hand in hand because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
