A group of Israeli citizens presented a legal document this week in support of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student from Columbia University who was arrested during his naturalization interview in April before being released on bail.
The 26 Israeli citizens, most of whom are members of the Faculty and students of the Ivy League School in New York, presented a brief amicus that supports Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian activist, in his case of ongoing immigration. The Government presented an appeal arguing that the Federal District Court had no jurisdiction on Mahdawi’s claims and, therefore, did not have the authority to free it at the end of April. Reversed the decision of the District Court. The Second Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit is expected to listen to the case in the coming weeks.
The Israeli citizens who presented the brief say that the arrest and detention of Mahdawi, who call a “driving force” behind the efforts to promote peaceful relationships between the Israelis and the Palestinians on the campus, violated their rights of the first amendment and theirs. It is also the first time that Israeli citizens have presented in support of student activists led by the Trump administration.
Amicus’s writings aim to provide experience or information to the Court, but the people who present them are not parties in the demands themselves.
“When arresting and arresting Mohsen, the government sought to quell the pro-peaca and pro-processing defense of Mohsen,” says the report. “But the planned effect of government actions towards Mohsen was to hit the broader movement for peace in Israel/Palestine”, which includes the group that presented the report.
A spokesman for the National Security Department said in response to the questions about the arguments in the brief that it is a “privilege to receive a visa or green card to live and study in the United States of America.”
“When lawyers for violence, glorify and support terrorists who enjoy the murder of Americans and harass the Jews, that privilege must be revoked, and should not be in this country,” said the spokesman.
Mahdawi, an American permanent resident who grew up in the Al-Fara’A refugee camp, will return to school for the autumn semester to obtain a mastery, is expected to obtain. In April, he came into what he thought was the “final stage” of a long way to citizens, their lawyers said in judicial documents. The interview turned out to be a “trap,” the lawyers said.
“ICE agents, masked and visibly armed, entered the interview room and chained Mr. Mahdawi,” said the judicial documents.
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The authorities said in judicial documents that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that Mahdawi’s “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse consequences of foreign policy and would compromise a convincing foreign policy interest.”
The summary of Israeli citizens argue that Mahdawi is the “antithesis of his government’s representation.” It describes its efforts to actively build ties between the Israelis and the Palestinians on the Columbia Campus, including the establishment of a group that would participate in a regular dialogue.
“There can be no dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians without Palestinians, and Mohsen began these conversations, was the first Palestinian to participate and made it possible for other Palestinians to join,” says the report.
Those behind Amicus’s summary also said that Mahdawi was committed to fighting anti -Semitism. In a pro-palestine protest of the campus in 2023, for example, he directed a crowd in singing “shame” after a person began shouting anti-Semitic and antislvas statements, says the report. Mahdawi appeared in the CBS news program “60 minutes” to talk about the incident, saying: “The struggle for the freedom of Palestine and the fight against anti -Semitism go hand in hand, because injustice in any place is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Others have also joined in support of the students that the Trump administration has attacked due to its activism. A coalition of American organizations and congregations, including the Jewish Center for Justice, the Jewish agenda of New York and J Street, presented an Amicus summary in a separate case to support the student of the University of Tufts Rümesa Öztürk, who was arrested and detained for two months after she co-wrotes an essay on Israel and the war in Gaza.
Öztürk, who was taken from the street by masked agents in plains near his Massachusetts campus, was released in May while his immigration case continues. The Government is appealing its transfer from Louisiana to Vermont, that the District Court granted in April, arguing that the court did not have the authority to allow the move.
In the amicus summary, Jewish groups rejected the government’s argument, writing that Öztürk’s arrest violated the “most basic constitutional rights.”
Victor Kovner, a lawyer who presented the report in the Öztürk case, told NBC News that the message of the groups to the Trump administration is “to stop using anti -Semitism as a website to attack their critics.”
“Anti -Semitism is real and growing, but the Trump administration is using it as a pretext to silence its critics or attack universities,” he said. Kovner also said that seeing the video of the Öztürk arrest, many Jews “reacted horror that this could take place in the United States in 2025”.
“We can combat anti -Semitism without trampling basic constitutional freedoms,” he said.
