Immigration agents caught anti-Israel Columbia University protesters while they were appointed to obtain US citizenship in Vermont on Monday.
Mohsen Madawi, a Palestinian student from the West Bank, spent 10 years in the United States and obtained a green card before being detained in the US Office of USCIS (USCIS) in Burlington. According to Intercept.
However, it appears that the Trump administration is trying to cut Madawi time in the US after leading anti-Israel protests at Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus until last spring.
Video footage posted on X on Monday It appeared to indicate that Mahdawi was tied up and escorted in front of him, surrounded by federal agents.
“It’s a kind of death sentence,” said Madawi, who previously headed the Palestinian Student Union in Colombia, by intercept.
“Because my people are being killed indiscriminately and unfairly.”
His lawyer, Luna Drubi, told the outlet, “Mahadawi was “illegally detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity.”
“He wanted to come to this country and speak freely about the atrocities he witnessed, but he would only be punished for such a speech,” she added.
Colombia declined to comment, citing its family education rights and privacy law (FERPA) obligations.
Neither the DHS nor the State Department responded to requests for comment.
Detained anti-Israel-Colombian protester Mahmoud Khalil and detained Mahdawi predicted they would be targets of the Trump administration’s massive deportation efforts, and hid and asked the university to help find shelter.
However, Colombia did not respond to his request, he said.
While Mahdawi was being drilled, Ussis informed him that he had moved the citizenship interview.
Intercept reported that Madhawi has been arrested as he was appointed this week.
The FBI also visited Mahdawi at the end of last year, but did not take any action against him.
“This is the outcome,” Madhawi said, according to the outlet. “I will live, be imprisoned or killed by the apartheid system.”
Mahdowy appeared in “60 Minutes” in December 2023. He criticized the then-Colombian president’s response to Hamas’ attacks on Israel on October 7 for his failure to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians, according to Intercept.
“That’s why they’re crushing universities now, and it’s not just Palestine,” he said.
“I ask me why I want to be a citizen of a country that is violating genocide. I have faith in the people who live in this country. The government is not people.”
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders blasted Mahdawi’s arrest.
“Mohsen Madawi, Vermont, of White River Junction, was illegally detained by ice during what appears to be the final step in his citizenship process.” He wrote on x In a joint statement from fellow state legislators, Senators Peter Welch and Becca Ballint.
“Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be given due process under the law and be released from custody immediately.”
