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Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, whose arrest by masked and hooded ICE agents when he arrived for his naturalization interview to become a U.S. citizen made national headlines last year, is facing a new deportation threat after a three-judge panel overturned a lower court ruling that had freed him from ICE custody. Mahdawi was involved in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, where he was a student, demanding an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He says he is being targeted solely for his advocacy.

“Enough is enough,” Mahdawi says. “Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom and equal rights between the river and the sea, and this government is trying to silence me.”

“That is just textbook censorship, and the First Amendment doesn’t allow it,” adds ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, a member of Mahdawi’s legal team.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

Trump Administration Fires Judges Who Blocked Deportations of Öztürk, Mahdawi

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the case of another Palestinian green card holder and activist born under Israeli occupation who’s also at risk of deportation from the U.S. after speaking out for Palestinian human rights. Mohsen Mahdawi is a Columbia University graduate student. Last year, masked and hooded ICE agents detained him when he appeared for what he believed would be a final naturalization interview in Vermont. He was held for 16 days before a judge ordered his release. Then, on Tuesday, a three-judge federal appeals panel overturned the lower court ruling that had freed Mahdawi from ICE custody. The ruling comes two months after the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated deportation proceedings against him.

AMY GOODMAN: After his release from ICE custody last year, Mohsen Mahdawi returned to Columbia University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He’s now a graduate student at Columbia. In addition to his Palestine advocacy, Mohsen is also the former president of Columbia University’s Buddhist Association.

Mohsen Mahdawi joins us now from Vermont. And we’re joined by Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, one of the legal team representing Mohsen.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Mohsen, if you could start off by sharing your reaction to the three-judge panel overturning a lower court ruling that you should be freed from detention? The judge at the time who freed you was defiant, especially when the federal government threatened to arrest you if you crossed state lines. You had to come back to New York to graduate from Columbia. And he said you should be not only allowed to graduate, but talk to anyone you wanted to, etc. But now a federal judge ruling has overturned that decision.

MOHSEN MAHDAWI: Good morning, Amy and Nermeen, and to your audience.

This decision is very disappointing and, on a personal level, heart-wrenching, because I put my trust in the court and I continue to believe in the legal and in the court system in America. Nevertheless, I feel still hopeful, optimistic and resolved and determined to achieve justice for myself and for millions of people in this country, whether if they are green card holders or students, international students, whose — this action actually is chilling their speech and creating more fear among the community, that they know that the government can punish them and arrest them, detain them, and deport them possibly, just because the government disagree with their speech.

And this is what I’m fighting for. I’m fighting for justice, to be able to speak my truth and to be able to say, “Stop the ongoing genocide against my people. Enough is enough. Palestinian people deserve to have safety, freedom and equal rights between the river and the sea.” And this government is trying to silence me, targeting me, like what we heard from Brother Salah Sarsour. Also, solidarity to him.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nathan Freed Wessler, you are on Mohsen’s legal team. If you could talk about what this ruling means? And explain what a habeas petition is.

NATHAN FREED WESSLER: Yeah, habeas petition is one of the oldest forms of legal process we have — it dates from the 1200s in England — as a way to give judges the power to release people from unjust or unconstitutional or illegal detention.

Immediately after Mohsen was seized by immigration agents last year, his legal team filed a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. And within just a couple weeks, a federal judge looked at the case and ordered him released, saying that there was strong reason to believe that this detention was in violation of his First Amendment rights.

That’s critical, because,........

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