'Listen to His Message': Jailed Mohsen Mahdawi Speaks on Core Constitutional Rights and Empathy
"I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles of this country," Mahdawi told a U.S. senator.
In an interview with Sen. Peter Welch on Monday, Columbia University student organizer Mohsen Mahdawi described how his arrest by immigration agents earlier this month took place right as he was preparing to answer questions on a citizenship test about the bedrock principles and rights afforded to everyone in the U.S.—particularly freedom of speech.
"I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles of this country," Mahdawi told the Vermont Democratic senator during a visit to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center where he has been held for more than a week. "The most important rights [are in] the Bill of Rights, which includes free speech on the top of these rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of having religion or not having religion at all."
Welch visited Mahdawi as Columbia students chained themselves to a fence at the Ivy League school, demanding his release along with that of Mahmoud Khalil, another leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests who was detained last month and is being held at a detention facility in Jena, Louisiana with the Trump administration pursuing his deportation.
Mahdawi, a green-card holder for the past 10 years, arrived at an immigration office in Colchester, Vermont last week to finalize his application to become a naturalized citizen—only to be handcuffed and arrested by armed, plainclothes federal agents wearing masks.
Welch noted in his talk with Mahdawi that Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in a memo that as a student speaking out against Israel's U.S.-backed war on Gaza and the West Bank, Mahdawi could "potentially undermine" the Middle East peace process. Mahdawi is one of several student activists who have been detained for protesting in solidarity with Palestine, and hundreds have had their visas revoked as the Trump administration claims to be fighting antisemitism.
On Friday, a federal judge in Georgia's Northern District ordered ICE to restore the legal status of 133 of the students who had had their F-1 visas revoked.
"The Constitution protects everyone on American soil, so the Trump administration cannot ignore due process to unjustifiably threaten students with the loss of immigration status, and arrest and deportation," said Akiva Freidlin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU-Georgia, which had filed a lawsuit over the visa revocations.
Rubio also invoked the Immigration and Nationality Act in the administration's effort to deport Khalil; a provision within the law allows the government to initiate the deportation of lawful permanent residents by claiming they threaten U.S. foreign policy.
"Basically, he is describing being anti-war as antisemitic," said Mahdawi. "How could that be possible when my partners, most of my partners at Columbia's campus and beyond, are Jews and Israelis. My work has been centered on peacemaking, and all I am doing, I am being a human."
Posting a video of his talk with Mohsen on social media, Welch urged Americans to "listen to his message" of empathy, which the organizer said extends to Jewish people in the U.S. and Israel.
"My empathy," he said, "extends beyond the Palestinian people... And my hope and my dream is to see this conflict, if one might say, to see an end to the war, an end to the killing, to see a peaceful resolution between Palestinians and Israelis."
"How could this be a threat to anybody except the war machine that is feeding this?" said Mahdawi.
Mahdawi urged his supporters "to continue working for the democracy of this country and for humanity," and said, "The war must stop."
