By Guy Page

An immigration judge has ordered Mohsen Mahdawi, the Fairlee resident and Columbia University anti-Israel activist, deported, the ACLU of Vermont reported June 10.

However, Mahdawi may remain in the U.S. pending the outcome of his appeal of a separate federal court case.

Mahdawi, a green-card holder, became a cause celebre among Vermont’s anti-Trump resistance movement last spring when Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered him detained and deported. He fought the order and won in U.S. federal court in Burlington. Several Vermont state senators held  press conferences in support of him, and he was applauded from the floor of the Vermont House. 

Rubio maintained in his deportation order that Mahdawi’s speech in support of Palestinian human rights undermined U.S. foreign policy, grounds for deportation under  the Immigration and Nationality Act). 

Mahdawi disagrees. 

“I come from a refugee camp in Palestine, where my family still resides. I know what it means to live without rights, without voice, without safety. America was the first place I ever felt true freedom and dignity,” Mohsen Mahdawi told the ACLU. “For over a decade I have built my life here, loved this community, and chosen this country’s ideals as my own. That is the country I chose — and now the administration is abusing immigration law to silence me for speaking the truth about Palestinian suffering and genocide….the First Amendment is sacred, and I refuse to be silenced.”

Neither Mahdawi nor the ACLU mention state police citing his attempt to return from an overseas trip over a decade ago with illegal drugs and a large amount of cash in his possession. Nor do they mention the police report (cited and brushed aside by the federal judge in his decision) about his alleged effort to work for a Vermont gun repair shop, also over a decade ago, citing his expertise acquired in his homeland.