Mohsen Mahdawi came to the United States from the occupied West Bank. He became a permanent resident. He enrolled at Columbia University. He organized. He led protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And then ICE agents abducted him.

An immigration judge has now blocked his deportation, ruling against the Trump administration’s effort to remove him from the country. His attorneys are clear about what the administration was actually trying to do: deport Mahdawi not for any crime, not for any violation, but for his advocacy opposing Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

United Voices had previously condemned Mahdawi’s abduction by ICE as a politically motivated act of intimidation. The judge’s ruling validates that assessment. “Lawful permanent residents do not forfeit their constitutional rights when they speak out against genocide or advocate for Palestinian human rights,” United Voices said. “Attempts to weaponize immigration enforcement against peaceful student activists represent a dangerous assault on free speech and equal protection under the law.”

Mahdawi’s case is not isolated. It is part of a documented pattern in which the Trump administration has used immigration enforcement as a political weapon against students and scholars who have expressed pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide views. Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was detained. Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk had her visa revoked for writing a divestment op-ed. In each case, federal courts have had to step in to stop the administration from doing through deportation what the First Amendment prohibits it from doing through law: punishing people for their speech.

Mahdawi is represented by a team including the ACLU, the ACLU of Vermont, Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, Martin Delaney & Ricci Law Group, Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners PLLC, and CLEAR. Their work — and the judge’s ruling — has protected one student’s right to remain in the country where he built his life.

But the pattern that put him in this position has not ended. The administration has made clear it views immigration enforcement as a legitimate tool to silence political dissent. United Voices is calling on federal authorities to cease any politically motivated efforts to intimidate or deport activists based on their viewpoints, and on Congress to ensure that immigration powers cannot be used as a substitute for the censorship the Constitution prohibits. No student should have to fight deportation as the price of speaking truth about what their government is funding.