By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals has reinstated deportation proceedings against pro-Palestinian student Mohsen Mahdawi, according to a court filing from his lawyers.
A U.S. immigration judge in February had rejected efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to deport the Columbia University student, who was arrested last year following his participation in pro-Palestinian protests.
Nina Froes, the Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based immigration judge who blocked the government’s efforts to deport Mahdawi, was fired by the Trump administration last month.
The Board of Immigration Appeals, part of the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, overturned Froes’ decision.
Trump alleges activists like Mahdawi are antisemitic, support extremism and threaten U.S. foreign policy.
Activists, including some Jewish groups, say the government conflates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.
“The government continues to weaponize the immigration system to silence dissent,” Mahdawi said in a statement shared by his legal team on Wednesday.
Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was arrested in April 2025 upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. He was released after two weeks in detention following a judge’s order and was never charged with a crime.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Mahdawi, says the government cannot deport him for the moment as his arrest was still being challenged in federal court.
Trump has cracked down on pro-Palestinian movements by attempting to deport foreign protesters, threatening to freeze funds for universities where protests were held and scrutinizing immigrants’ online speech.
The crackdown has led to concerns among rights experts about free speech, due process and academic freedom. It has also faced legal and judicial roadblocks.
U.S. colleges have seen campus movements against Israel’s war in Gaza since late 2023. Demonstrations peaked in 2024. While the intensity of the movements has declined since then, there have been occasional flashes.
Over the weekend, University of Michigan professor Derek Peterson praised pro-Palestinian protesters in a spring commencement program, prompting the university to issue an apology.
On Wednesday, Rutgers University said it withdrew an invitation to pro-Palestinian business leader Rami Elghandour, a critic of Israel, for a graduation speech next week. Elghandour criticized the decision that the university said was based on complaints by some students about his online posts.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Lincoln Feast and Himani Sarkar)
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