By Luc Cohen
(Reuters) -Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was released from U.S. immigration custody on Wednesday, after a judge ruled that he should be allowed to challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests while free on bail.
Mahdawi, born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, was arrested earlier this month upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. A judge swiftly ordered President Donald Trump’s administration not to deport him from the United States or take him out of the state of Vermont.
After two weeks in detention, Mahdawi walked out of the federal courthouse in Burlington, Vermont, on Wednesday after U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered his release at a court hearing on Wednesday, according to his lawyers.
“Mohsen has committed no crime, and the government’s only supposed justification for holding him in prison is the content of his speech,” Lia Ernst, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing Mahdawi, said in a statement.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment.
Mahdawi’s arrest was part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to deport pro-Palestinian foreign university students who are in the United States legally and have not been charged with any crimes.
Trump administration officials have said student visa holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to U.S. foreign policy. Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Other protesters in similar circumstances include Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk. Both Khalil and Ozturk remain in custody.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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