Appeals Court Reverses Release Order for Columbia Activist Mahdawi

A federal appeals panel reversed a lower court decision that had ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi on July 21, 2026. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled unanimously that the lower court judge had overstepped authority by intervening in Mahdawi’s case before it had moved fully through the immigration court system.

The ruling opens the door to the re-arrest of the 35-year-old pro-Palestinian Columbia University student activist. Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and is a legal permanent resident of the United States. Immigration agents arrested him during a citizenship interview in April 2025.

He was released two weeks later and graduated from Columbia University soon after. He is currently appealing an order of removal issued against him in immigration court. The ruling mirrors a separate appellate panel’s earlier 2026 decision against Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia classmate of Mahdawi.

The appeals court did not rule on the merits of Mahdawi’s claim that he was unconstitutionally targeted for criticizing Israel. The 2nd Circuit is expected to issue a separate ruling concerning the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University.

At a hearing before the 2nd Circuit last September, government attorneys argued against the release of both Mahdawi and Ozturk, stating habeas corpus relief should be off-limits to those in immigration proceedings.

The lower court decision reversed by the appeals panel had likened the government’s efforts to expel Mahdawi and other activists to McCarthyist repression.