‘I have faith that justice will prevail’

In his first comments to the media since his April 14 detainment during his naturalization interview in Vermont, Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi says he has faith that he won’t be deported.

Mahdawi, a 34-year-old U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, spoke to NPR’s Morning Edition from the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Vermont. He was accompanied by one of his attorneys.

“I’m centered, internally I am at peace,” Mahdawi, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a blue uniform, told NPR. “While I still know deeply that this is a level of injustice that I am facing, I have faith. I have faith that justice will prevail.”

Mahdawi explained he has faith because of the people using their voices to condemn his arrest. But also because he believes “in the system of democracy” in the U.S., and he’s inspired by the resilience of Gazans, who, he says, despite experiencing genocide, have kept their faith.

Growing up in the al-Fara’a refugee camp, Mahdawi witnessed Israeli military violence and was shot in the leg at 15 by an Israeli soldier, according to court documents. He immigrated to the U.S. over a decade ago and began attending Columbia University in 2021, where he became a key organizer of pro-Palestinian protests on campus last year. 

He told NPR that “freedom was just a concept” to him before he moved to the U.S. from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He added that his freedom is now in jeopardy following his arrest.

“I think this is a red flag, not only to me, but to the American people who care about freedom, the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness,” Mahdawi said, quoting the Declaration of Independence. “I have the hope that this country will fulfill its promise.”

On April 14, Mahdawi walked into what he thought was the final step to becoming a U.S. citizen. He told NPR that he believed it could be “a trap” — especially after another passport holder, Mahmoud Khalil, had been detained a month earlier. Mahdawi, however, still showed up at an empty embassy and was told he wasn’t scheduled for a naturalization interview. He was shortly arrested by ICE agents who were masked and visibly armed, per court filings.

Mahdawi told NPR that he was worried the agents were taking him to Louisiana, as they had done with Khalil, isolating him from his community and legal support in Vermont, where he is a resident. They missed the flight by a few minutes, and Mahdawi’s attorneys were able to persuade a judge to detain him in Vermont, a decision the Trump administration has not been successful in reversing.

Mahdawi’s attorneys have since argued that the Trump administration has violated his First Amendment right to free speech. They did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Now sitting in a Vermont correctional facility, Mahdawi invoked a Martin Luther King Jr. quote in his interview with NPR: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

“The injustice that I am facing here, and the injustice that the anti-war movement is facing, is also connected to the injustice that the Palestinian people are going through,” he said. “We’re talking about 55,000 people who have been killed. We see children being killed, amputated, losing their parents, no homes. This is what’s moving us.”

And to U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who claim that Mahdawi’s “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” he says it’s a form of gaslighting.

“The government is gaslighting the American people and especially the American Jewish communities,” he said. “In fact, we had so many Jews and Israelis who actually joined us in saying ‘Ceasefire now.’ So, they are actually weaponizing antisemitism in order to destroy the hope that America has, which is universities and liberal institutions.”

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mahdawi added that, despite all of this, he still wants to be an American — and that he has demonstrated his will and desire to become one.

“I want to also remind everybody, the definition of the government in the constitution,” he said. “‘We The People,’ and I am counting on the people who I’ve got the chance to know as kind hearted, good people, to stand up for what is right.”

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, at which a judge will decide whether Mahdawi will be released or deported.