Released Palestinian student helps launch immigrant legal aid initiative in Vermont

MONTPELIER, Vt. — A Palestinian student arrested during an interview about finalizing his U.S. citizenship helped launch a $1 million fundraising campaign to strengthen the legal safety net for immigrants in Vermont on Thursday, a week after a federal judge freed him from custody. Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, who led protests against Israel's war in Gaza at Columbia University, spent 16 days in a state prison before a judge ordered him released on April 30. The Trump administration has said Mahdawi should be deported because his activism threatens its foreign policy goals, but the judge ruled that he has raised a "substantial claim" that the government arrested him to stifle speech with which it disagrees. Immigration authorities have detained college students from around the country since the first days of the Trump administration. Many of them participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Mahdawi was among the first to win his freedom after challenging his arrest. "This is a message of hope and light, that our humanity is much larger than what divides us. Our humanity is much larger than unjust laws," he said at a Statehouse news conference. "And this is also a message to the rest of the world. It starts from Vermont." Mahdawi joined Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and community advocates to announce the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. The group, which also includes lawyers and philanthropists, says the fund will be used to expand the legal team at the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, train pro bono attorneys and partner with community groups to support those facing deportation, detention and family separation. "I am here with a large and diverse group of Vermonters to say: We protect and take care of our people, regardless of their national origin, regardless of their immigration status, regardless of the language they speak," Ram Hinsdale said. "We take care of our own against any and all threats." Members of Vermont's congressional delegation have spoken up on Mahdawi's behalf, as have state politicians. Vermont's House and Senate passed resolutions condemning the circumstances of his detention and advocating for his release and due process rights. Republican Gov. Phil Scott has said there is no justification for the manner in which Mahdawi was arrested, at an immigration office in Colchester. "Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks," the governor said the next day. "The power of the executive branch of the federal government is immense, but it is not infinite, and it is not absolute." Mahdawi, a legal permanent resident, was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, another Palestinian permanent resident of the U.S. and graduate student who was arrested in March. His release, which is being challenged by the government, allows him to travel outside of his home state of Vermont and attend his graduation from Columbia in New York later this month. On Thursday, he described sharing a prison cell with a farmer from Mexico who prayed every night. "I think his prayers have been answered today by this initiative," he said. "This is what I call love and care. This is what I call humanity and justice. This is what I call the teachings of Jesus, who would feed the hungry, who would shelter the homeless and who would provide support to illegal immigrants."