Columbia student arrested during citizenship interview can remain free, court says

Mohsen Mahdawi, the Columbia University student who was arrested last month during his citizenship interview, can remain free from custody while his case proceeds, a federal appeals court said on Friday.

The three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit denied an effort by the Trump administration to stay a federal judge's ruling ordering Mahdawi's release.

Mahdawi, who co-founded a university organization called the Palestinian Student Union with detained Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank before moving in 2014 to the U.S. where he has been a legal resident for 10 years.

His lawyers believe that, like Khalil, he is being targeted by the Trump administration under Immigration and Nationality Act section 237(a)(4)(C)(i), which asserts that the secretary of state can deem a person deportable if they have reasonable ground to believe that the person's presence or activities in the U.S. could have adverse foreign policy consequences.

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford last week ordered Mahdawi released from detention while his case proceeds, finding that Mahdawi presents no flight risk and saying that the Columbia University student should remain in Vermont, where he has a home, and attend school remotely.

On Friday, the appeals court agreed with Judge Crawford's order and concluded that the government has not shown any "irreparably injury from either his release on bail or continued presence in the District of Vermont pending his removal proceedings."

The three-judge panel also said the government is "unlikely to succeed" on its arguments that Judge Crawford did not have jurisdiction over Mahdawi's habeas petition and said the Justice Department was also "unlikely to succeed" on its claims that the district court lacked the authority to order Mahdawi's release.

"The practical effect of the relief the government seeks would be Mahdawi's re-detention," the judges said. "Individual liberty substantially outweighs the government's weak assertions of administrative and logistical costs."

Mahdawi, who is expected to graduate from Columbia next month, was arrested at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Vermont, where he was taking his last step in the process to become a U.S. citizen.

In an interview with ABC News after his release, Mahdawi recounted his arrest and detainment, saying that he feared his citizenship interview was a "trap."

"It was a moment of like, should I be happy or should I be cautious when I received the notice?" Mahdawi told ABC News about receiving the notice for his citizenship interview. "And I sense that this might be a trap. And for sure, indeed, it was an alarm bell where I directly reached out to my legal team in order to navigate, you know, the pros and cons and this risk that I think that I may lose my freedom."

In response to the government's allegations against him, Mahdawi and his lawyers have disputed accusations that he ever threatened Israelis or those of the Jewish faith.

"So for them to accuse me of this is not going to work, because I am a person who actually has condemned antisemitism," Mahdawi told ABC News. "And I believe that the fight against antisemitism and the fight to free Palestine go hand in hand, because, as Martin Luther King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."