“…our fight is a fight for love, is a fight for democracy, is a fight for humanity. And I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

These were among the first words Mohsen Mahdawi spoke on April 30 to a crowd of cheering supporters, chanting “No fear, no fear, no fear, no fear, no fear.” 

Mohsen had just been released from a federal immigration detention center in Burlington, Vermont, and the news of his release and defiant stand have already given heart and hope to millions across the U.S. and the world.

On April 30, federal District Court Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford dealt the Trump regime a defeat and the people a victory by releasing Mohsen on bail, pending a hearing on his habeas corpus petition to dismiss the regime’s case against him. “This is not the first time that the nation has seen chilling action by the government intended to shut down debate,” Judge Crawford said, referring to the “Red Scares” of the 1920s and 1950s.

Mohsen and his lawyers and supporters still have to fight this battle, but Judge Crawford’s decision enables him to do so without being locked up, which would make this fight much more difficult. Mohsen is also free to continue his education at Columbia University and graduate this spring.

ICE’s Criminal Kidnapping… Foiled by Quick Legal Action

Mohsen Mahdawi is a green card–holding legal permanent resident of the U.S. 

Yet on April 14, masked ICE goons illegally grabbed him in a Citizenship and Immigration Services center in Burlington, Vermont, when he arrived for an appointment to further his application for U.S. citizenship. 

Later that day, ICE drove Mohsen to Burlington’s airport, planning to fly him to Louisiana—where the courts are dominated by fascists—for detention. (Other pro-Palestine international students, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, have been sent to detention centers there.¹) But the ICE agents missed the flight by nine minutes. 

In the meantime, Mohsen’s legal team had already filed an emergency motion on his behalf, and a Vermont judge issued an order forbidding the government from removing Mohsen from the state. So Mohsen ended up being held in Vermont, not Louisiana, and this made a huge difference.

A Leader of the Struggle for Palestine Whose Courageous Voice Rang Out from Behind Prison Walls 

Mohsen was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied Palestinian West Bank. A decade ago, he came to the U.S. and in 2021 began attending Columbia University. There he became one of the main organizers of campus protests in support of the Palestinian people.

Even in ICE detention, he continued to speak out for justice and the Palestinian cause. Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King on Vermont Public Radio, he said, “‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ And the injustice that I am facing here and the injustice that the antiwar movement is facing, is also connected to the injustice that the Palestinian people are going through. We’re talking about 55,000 people who have been killed. We see children being killed, amputated, losing their parents, no homes. This is what’s moving us.”²

After his release, Mohsen said, "We must stand up for humanity, because the rest of the world, not only Palestine, is watching us, and what is going to happen in America is going to affect the rest of the world."

The Regime’s Case: Misusing an Obscure Law to Criminalize Speech

The Trump regime hasn’t accused Mohsen of any crime. Instead, as the regime did in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, Secretary of State Rubio claimed he could expel any non-citizen he deemed had hurt U.S. foreign policy interests—even if they’re engaging in constitutionally protected free speech and activism! 

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notice claimed Mohsen engaged in “anti-Semitic conduct through leading pro-Palestinian protests and calling for Israel’s destruction.” A memo from Rubio alleges Mohsen engaged in “threatening rhetoric and intimidation of pro-Israeli bystanders,” and that these actions “could undermine the Middle East peace process by reinforcing antisemitic sentiment.” 

The government has provided no evidence of these charges,³ and even if they were true, these are matters of protected political speech. But the actual evidence shows that Mohsen did not threaten Israelis, and vigorously opposed antisemitism. 

In a November 2023 account of a protest against Israel’s assault on Gaza, the Columbia Spectator reported that Mohsen directly denounced an individual spewing anti-Jewish and anti-Black bile, saying, “Shame on the person who called [for] ‘death to Jews,’” and that this inspired chants of “shame on you” from the demonstrators. Later, he said to this protester, “You don’t represent us.” In his speech that day, Mohsen spoke of his appreciation of the solidarity of “Jewish brothers and sisters who stand with us here today.” Mohsen even addressed pro-Israel counter-protesters saying, “Even though you’re on the other side, we beg you, we cry, we ask you to see the humanity in us, to join us in our fight for freedom, for justice, for humanity.”

Mohsen’s arrest had nothing to do with combatting antisemitism (the hatred of Jewish people or Judaism), which must be opposed wherever it raises its head. Instead, Mohsen’s arrest is part of the Trump/MAGA fascist regime’s campaign to terrorize foreign born students and silence opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and U.S. imperialism’s crimes around the world.⁴ (Mohsen writes about this in a New York Times guest essay that appeared after his release, “I Was Detained for My Beliefs: Who Will Be Next?”)

It represents a leap toward the radically different “legal” system the Trump/MAGA fascist regime is rapidly hammering into place, one which “openly and aggressively strips away basic rights and blatantly declares that there is no rule of law and due process of law other than what it dictates,” as the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has analyzed.

Trump’s Campaign to “Strip Away Basic Rights” Suffers a Setback

In the April 30 ruling in favor of Mohsen Mahdawi that ordered his release from custody, Judge Crawford said that the government had failed to show that Mohsen was a danger to the community or a flight risk. He pointed to over 125 letters supporting Mohsen from neighbors, professors and friends, many of them Jewish, attesting to his “commitment to principles of nonviolence.”

In their April 14 habeas corpus petition, Mohsen’s lawyers argued that the federal government violated his rights to free speech and due process, and that he’d been arrested in direct retaliation for his outspoken support for Palestinian rights.

On April 30, Judge Crawford called these “substantial [valid] claims that his detention is the result of a retaliation for protected speech that he engaged in as a college student on the Columbia campus.”

Judge Crawford also sounded the alarm about the assault on the rule of law. “The court also considers the extraordinary setting of this case and others like it,” he wrote in his decision. “Legal residents—not charged with crimes or misconduct—are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day. Our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palmer Raids of 1919-1920 that led to the deportation of hundreds of people suspected of anarchist or communist views.”

In a social media post, a spokeswoman for DHS condemned Judge Crawford’s decision, repeating the Trump regime’s blatant lies: “When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country.” Later, she wrote that no lawsuit was going to stop them from pursuing their assault on immigrants.

A Fierce Battle Ahead—the Fascist Trump Regime Must Go!

A fierce battle lies ahead—for Mohsen Mahdawi, for all the other immigrants and non-citizens now being targeted by the Trump/MAGA regime, and for all decent people in this country.

Yet Mohsen’s release is an important development, including because of all the support Mohsen garnered. (This month, more than 200 Israelis living in the U.S. signed an open letter condemning his arrest.)

“Today’s victory cannot be overstated,” Shezza Abboushi Dallal, one of Mohsen’s lawyers said. “It is a victory for Mohsen who gets to walk free today out of this court, and it is also a victory for everyone else in this country invested in the very ability to dissent, who want to be able to speak out for the causes that they feel a moral imperative to lend their voices to and want to do that without fear that they will be abducted by masked men.”

This setback for the Trump regime must be built on with much broader, deeper and more diverse and active support not only for Mohsen but for all the foreign-born people now under attack. And it must be part of an overall movement to make it impossible for the Trump regime to carry out its horrendous agenda or to stay in power. 

Drop All Charges Against Mohsen Mahdawi Now!

In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.
The Fascist Trump Regime Must Go NOW!