Mahdawi—who attended Columbia and plans to get his master’s degree there in the fall—was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank, is a permanent resident of the U.S. and has had a green card for 10 years, according to a legal filing challenging his detention. His lawyers argue detaining Mahdawi and other actions from the respondents—who are named as President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and more—“plainly violate the First Amendment, which protects [his] right to speak on matters of public concern and prevents the government from chilling constitutionally-protected speech.” Mahdawi’s lawyers were granted a temporary restraining order preventing the government from moving Mahdawi from Vermont. Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Rubio’s revocation of student visas, saying, “the Secretary of State has the right to revoke a green card or a visa for individuals who … are adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States of America.” Weeks after Khalil’s detainment, Rumeysa Ozturk—a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University—was taken into custody by federal agents because she “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”
Author: Molly Bohannon, Forbes Staff, Molly Bohannon, Forbes Staff https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/
Published at: 2025-04-14 22:09:44
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