On April 14, 2025, I used to be detained throughout what ought to have been my citizenship naturalization interview. After greater than two weeks of unjust imprisonment, a federal choose dominated in favor of releasing me. In a serious victory for democracy, I could be the first of the various scholar activists who’ve been detained by the Trump administration to be free of detention.
The Division of Homeland Safety had successfully orchestrated a lure. It dangled the prospect of turning into an American citizen, just for masked brokers to apprehend me after I completed the interview and signed a doc saying I used to be prepared to take an oath of allegiance. Authorities brokers separated me from my lawyer, who had gone to the appointment with me. They deliberate to whisk me from my residence state, Vermont, to a detention facility in Louisiana.
The lure was not an entire shock to me. It got here after other arrests of scholars for exercising their proper to free speech in opposing Israel’s relentless killing and destruction in Gaza. I had ready by contacting legal professionals, my Vermont senators and my Home consultant, the media and a gaggle of neighborhood members. The Division of Homeland Safety’s plan didn’t go easily, as we missed the flight to Louisiana by minutes. These couple of minutes modified the course of my authorized case and, finally, led to my freedom from detention as a result of I used to be capable of battle for my rights on honest floor. Not like different college students who proceed to languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, I’ve been afforded the “privilege” to hunt justice whereas not in jail.
Regardless of spending 16 nights in a jail cell, I by no means misplaced hope within the inevitability of justice and the ideas of democracy. I wished to turn into a citizen of this nation as a result of I imagine within the ideas that it enshrines. When Decide Geoffrey W. Crawford dominated in my favor, he reassured me, together with the American individuals, that there’s nonetheless purpose to hope in these ideas. However the street to justice is lengthy. My freedom is intertwined with the liberty of the opposite college students, who exercised the identical free speech rights as I did but languish in jail, and is intertwined with that of the Palestinians, who’re combating for his or her proper to life and justice, too.
The American authorities accuses me of undermining U.S. foreign policy, a patently absurd pretext for deportation for political speech that the Trump administration dislikes. The federal government is scraping the underside of the barrel in its attempts to smear me. My solely “crime” is refusing to simply accept the slaughter of Palestinians, opposing struggle and selling peace. I’ve merely insisted that worldwide regulation have to be revered. I imagine the way in which to a simply and long-lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis is thru diplomacy and restorative justice.
By searching for to deport me, the Trump administration is sending a transparent message: There isn’t a room for dissent, free speech be damned. It appears prepared to protect an extremist Israeli authorities from criticism on the expense of constitutional rights, all whereas suppressing the potential for a peaceable future for each Palestinians and Israelis, a future freed from trauma and worry.
I dream of justice and peace, a dream formed by the nightmarish recollections of my childhood. I used to be born a third-generation refugee in Al-Far’a camp within the West Financial institution below Israel’s apartheid system. After I was 8 years outdated, I buried my brother when he died a number of years after an Israeli army siege blocked his entry to medical care, finally leading to deadly well being points. As an alternative of celebrating my eleventh birthday, I walked in my uncle’s funeral procession after he was killed by the Israeli army. I witnessed an Israeli soldier kill my finest childhood good friend once I was 11.
When the Division of Homeland Safety took me into custody, the agent apologized prematurely however then handcuffed me, chained my arms to my waist and shackled my toes. I jokingly stated, whereas taking quick steps, “That is how I do strolling meditation,” to distract myself from fascinated about helpless Palestinians in Israeli jails who have been shackled similar to me, a few of them sexually abused and killed. “Breathe in love, breathe out love,” I instructed myself as we drove away.
In Cell No. C38, the place I spent my first night time, I noticed a flashlight peeking by means of the darkness because the night time guard did his routine test. At that second I grew to become conscious that I used to be now related to my grandfather, father, uncles and cousins, who have been all additionally unjustly imprisoned. I prayed that my future youngsters wouldn’t endure the identical injustice. As I fell asleep, I considered the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s well-known quote: “Darkness can not drive out darkness; solely gentle can do this. Hate can not drive out hate; solely love can do this.”
Earlier than transferring to america in 2014, freedom was an summary idea for me, one thing I may barely think about whereas dwelling below Israeli army occupation. I sang for freedom, wrote poems about it and dreamed of dwelling it however had by no means skilled it. I longed for bodily freedom — the power to journey with out encountering a army checkpoint — and for the proper to free speech, each of which I discovered in America.
Finally, I sought American citizenship not solely as a result of I didn’t wish to lose the liberty I loved as a everlasting resident however much more so as a result of I imagine within the ideas and values of democracy, which this nation stipulates in its founding paperwork. Whereas America has not at all times lived as much as these values, like Dr. King, I imagine they function a promise of what’s attainable.
These very freedoms are below assault right now, each for me and for others like me. The Trump administration is hewing to Israel’s playbook: Beneath the thinly veiled guise of safety, rights are being denied and due course of eradicated. The administration is silencing its critics by deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain noncitizen dissidents and is compromising the integrity of the immigration system.
As soon as the repression of dissent, within the title of safety, turns into a key goal of a authorities, authoritarian rule and even martial regulation should not far off. After they take a look at my case, all Individuals ought to ask themselves: What’s left of our democracy, and who will likely be focused subsequent?
Israel’s actions in Gaza have resulted within the deaths of greater than 52,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, based on the Gazan Well being Ministry. A majority of the useless are girls and youngsters, and a recent study suggests the quantity is probably going an unlimited undercount. It is a struggle of insanity and revenge that depends on American weapons, funded by U.S. taxpayer {dollars} and justified by American politicians.
My case reveals how the struggles for justice for Individuals and Palestinians are related. Individuals should resolve whether or not to assist struggle or peace, oppression or democracy. If we can not communicate up towards the killing of kids and what human rights consultants have known as a genocide in Gaza, what can we communicate out towards?
Mohsen Mahdawi is a Palestinian human rights advocate primarily based in Vermont. He was born and raised in a refugee camp within the West Financial institution, and is learning philosophy at Columbia College.
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