USA. Mohsen Mahdawy arrested after an interview with American citizenship

Propalestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi, one of the organizers of protests at Columbia University, was arrested by officers of the National Security Department. Mahdawi's lawyer says that this is the retaliation of Trump's administration for his “activity for Palestine.”

According to ABC News, on Monday in the city of Colchester in Vermont, student activist Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested by officers of the National Security Department just after he left the immigration office in which he tried to grant him American citizenship. Mahdawi is a Palestinian who lives in the United States legally as a permanent resident. He is a student of the University of Columbia, in which he organized protests against activities Israel in the Gaza Strip.

– Trump's administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi as part of direct retaliation for his activities for Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian – said student lawyer Luna Droubi, cited by the BBC. – His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak against atrocities in the Gaza Strip. It is incompatible with the constitution – she added.

The lawyer asked the court to give the services a temporary ban on the transfer of Mahdawi outside the Vermont district. The court agreed to this request.

Mohsen Mahdawi – who is he?

Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the west shore and moved to USA in 2014. Since then, he has lived in the United States legally as a permanent resident. Next month he was to graduate at the University of Columbia, where he was one of the leaders of protests against Israel's activities in the Gaza Strip.

In December 2023, Mahdawi appeared in the “60 minutes” journalistic program in the United States, in which he said that as a child he saw an Israeli soldier shot his best friend on the west shore.

– Mr. Mahdawi is afraid that if he loses the status of a permanent resident and is deported to the west shore, he will experience the same harassments, detainings and torture that his family experienced, and will be in even greater danger in the light of lies against him – the lawyer pointed out.

According to ABC News, Mahdawi's lawyers believe that he has become the target of Trump administration attacks under the introduced law, which states that the Secretary of State may consider a person qualifying for deportation, if he has grounds to think that the presence or activity of that person in the US may have negative consequences for American foreign policy.

Senator of the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders He said that Mahdawi “was illegally detained by ICE when the last stage of the process of giving him citizenship lasted.” “He should be provided with an honest process and immediately release him from custody,” he emphasized, quoted by the BBC.

Protests at American universities

In 2024, there were mass propalembling protests of students, the largest speeches against racism in 2020. The protesters opposed Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip and demanded that their universities terminate the universities with universities in Israel or companies cooperating with Israel in the military and reinforcing area.

Donald Trump At that time, he described the demonstrators as “hammering the mistakes” and “supporters of Hamas” and praised the strong, sometimes brutal police actions against the protesters. He also called for “pacifying radicals and restoring campuses, wanting to learn students.”

The Columbia University was the main point of the Propalestine Protest Movement, which last year overwhelmed the campuses of American universities. At the beginning of March, administration Trump announced that she would receive $ 400 million in the form of grants to the University of Columbia in connection with “inaction in the face of harassing Jewish students”.

In turn, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio informed in March that as part of the fight against anti -Semitism, at least 300 foreign students were withdrawn at university campus.