Decision not a deportation order

By Ted Cohen and Guy Page

A federal circuit court of appeals has overruled a Vermont judge who allegedly unlawfully released an immigrant detainee.

The ruling is not a deportation order, but it does give deportation decision-making to the U.S. immigration courts, not the federal court system. Mahdawi’s case is currently working its way through immigration courts.

Meanwhile, the West Bank native and Columbia University anti-Israel activist remains a cause celebre in Vermont, a status he gained last April after ICE detained him per a deportation order from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Many Vermont lawmakers and activists on the left rallied to his support, which continues – On August 9, the Unitarian Church in Montpelier will host a fundraiser for Mahdawi headlined “Vermont Says No Deportation Of Our Neighbors.” (The event takes place two days before the Democratic primary, in which three Washington County incumbents are facing a challenger. )

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford in Vermont had ordered Mohsen Mahdawi’s release a year ago, ruling that he enjoyed the same free speech rights as American citizens.

Crawford even went a step further, accusing the Trump administration of causing “great harm” to someone who had committed no crime.

In its 2-1 ruling Tuesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Crawford’s decision, saying the case should have been handled in the separate immigration court system. The appeals court also vacated the lower court’s April 2025 order releasing Mahdawi from ICE custody.

The judges did not rule on Mahdawi’s claims that his constitutional rights were violated. Instead, they said federal law requires those claims to be raised through the immigration court system and reviewed by a federal appeals court only after a final removal order.

The court found Mahdawi’s claims that he was targeted for removal because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy are part of his removal case and cannot be brought separately in district court.

Mahdawi is living free in the U.S. His immigration case is still pending. After an immigration judge initially dismissed the removal case, the Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated it. Mahdawi has also filed a separate appeal in the First Circuit challenging the removal proceedings.

Mahdawi’s lawyers issued a statement calling the appeals court ruling “as absurd as it is dangerous.”

Mahdawi had been detained in April 2025 after being arrested by federal immigration agents in Colchester at what he thought was to be a naturalization interview. The story went national, in part due to a photograph of Mahdawi in custody, taken by Christopher Helali, the Orange County high bailiff, American Communist Party leader, attendee of the Iran Ayotollah’s funeral earlier this month, and according to media reports a longtime friend of Mahdawi.

A self-avowed agitator for Palestinian “rights,” Mahdawi can now have his case reheard by a full panel of all the Second Circuit’s active judges or appeal to the US Supreme Court.

He accused the Trump administration earlier this year of weaponizing the immigration system to silence his political views.

“The government is trying to punish and deport me, a stateless Palestinian refugee from the occupied West Bank, because it opposes my peaceful advocacy for human dignity and equal rights for Palestinians,” he said.

Mahdawi’s case has become one of the most closely watched challenges to Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism, which has involved attempting to deport foreign protesters, threatening to freeze funds for universities where protests have taken place and scrutinising online speech.

As a student in Columbia’s School of General Studies, he led pro-Palestinian campus protests at Columbia three years ago. Mahdawi is among a number of student activists targeted by the Trump administration for deportation.