By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned a 2025 ruling that ordered the Trump administration to release pro-Palestinian advocate Mohsen Mahdawi from immigration detention, finding that the lower court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
Mahdawi, 35, was one of several non-citizen students who were placed in deportation proceedings last year after taking part in demonstrations against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The arrests prompted court challenges that placed Republican President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration against the right to free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Tuesday’s decision from a three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stopped short of backing the Trump administration’s push to deport non-citizens in the U.S. lawfully on the basis that their presence in the country runs counter to U.S. foreign policy — a practice that rights groups say infringes on free speech.
But taken together with another decision earlier this year in the case of pro-Palestinian advocate Mahmoud Khalil, the ruling could make it more difficult for non-citizens detained in immigration jails to quickly seek their release on the grounds of an alleged violation of their First Amendment rights.
DECISION HINGES ON JURISDICTION
Mahdawi, a West Bank-born Columbia University student, was arrested in April 2025 upon arriving for an interview for his U.S. citizenship petition. Vermont-based U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered him released on bond two weeks later, ruling that he enjoyed the same First Amendment free speech rights as U.S. citizens.
In overturning that ruling, the 2nd Circuit panel said Crawford did not have jurisdiction over the case because it should have been resolved in immigration court first. The judges did not order Mahdawi’s re-arrest.
U.S. immigration courts, which conduct deportation proceedings, are overseen by the Justice Department. District courts like Crawford’s, by contrast, weigh constitutional issues and are independent of the executive branch.
The panel included two judges appointed by Trump in his first term and a third appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.
Neither the Justice Department, which represents the federal government in court, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration enforcement, immediately responded to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Mahdawi, had no immediate comment.
SIMILAR RULING IN KHALIL’S CASE
Earlier this year, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached a similar conclusion in the case of Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who spent more than 100 days in immigration detention before his release on bond by a federal judge in New Jersey.
Khalil has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the divided 3rd Circuit’s conclusion that his claims should have been heard through an appeal of a removal order from an immigration court.
Both Khalil and Mahdawi were authorized to be in the United States, and neither has been charged with a crime.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis, William Maclean)
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