Palestinian Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi has been released from ICE detention.
On Wednesday, a judge denied the government’s request to pause his release and ordered him to be freed on bail, pending a legal challenge to the government’s detention of the Palestinian Columbia student in the first place. The Trump administration is attempting to deport Mahdawi on spurious charges of compromising US foreign policy.
“I am saying it clear and loud,” Mahdawi said outside the courthouse. “To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”
The government had planned to send Mahdawi to Louisiana in the same fashion it has rushed off other people it has detained, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk (whose court-ordered transfer to Vermont has been temporarily stalled), and Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri (who is now being held in a Texas detention center), according to court documents. But a judge blocked the Trump administration from moving him before he could be transferred.
In Mahdawi’s case, Judge Crawford contextualized “the extraordinary setting” of the case.
“Legal residents–not charged with crimes or misconduct–are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford said, citing the Red Scare and McCarthy-era targeting of people for their political views. “The wheel of history has come around again, but as before these times of excess will pass.”
It's good to see judges still sticking to their guns.
It's a shame the Executive has all the real ones.
Not in this country. There's lot's of guns.