Immigration decide halts Trump administration's deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi

[ad_1] NEW YORK (AP) — An immigration decide has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian graduate scholar who led protests at Columbia College in opposition to Israel and the battle in Gaza.

In a ruling made public Tuesday, the decide, Nina Froes, mentioned she had terminated the case due to a procedural misstep by authorities attorneys, who did not correctly certify an official doc they meant to make use of as proof.

The Trump administration might enchantment the choice. However the ruling marked the most recent setback for the federal authorities’s sweeping effort to expel pro-Palestinian campus activists and others who expressed criticism of Israel.

Final month, a separate immigration decide blocked the federal government’s try to deport a Tufts College graduate scholar, Rümeysa Öztürk , over an op-ed criticizing the college’s response to the battle in Gaza.

Mahdawi, a authorized everlasting resident of the U.S. for the final decade, was born in a refugee camp within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution. He was arrested by immigration brokers throughout a citizenship interview final April, however he was launched two weeks later by a federal decide.

Within the months since, the federal government has continued its effort to deport him, citing a memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio arguing noncitizens could be expelled from the nation if their presence might undermine U.S. international coverage pursuits.

Authorities attorneys submitted a photocopy of the doc to the immigration decide, however they did not certify it as required below federal regulation, the decide wrote.

“I'm grateful to the courtroom for honoring the rule of regulation and holding the road in opposition to the federal government’s makes an attempt to trample on due course of,” Mahdawi mentioned in an announcement launched by his attorneys. “This choice is a crucial step in direction of upholding what concern tried to destroy: the precise to talk for peace and justice.”

Mahdawi has additionally mounted a separate case in federal district courtroom arguing that he was unlawfully detained. That case stays ongoing, his legal professionals mentioned.

In an emailed assertion, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Division of Homeland Safety, solid Mahdawi as a pacesetter of “pro-terrorist riots” whose visa needs to be revoked.

“No activist decide, not this one or some other, goes to cease us from doing that,” she added.

window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '870613919693099', xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); };

(function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); [ad_2] Source link