Mohsen Mahdawi’s location unknown after Ice arrest in Vermont
Anna Betts
The attorney of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University who was apprehended by US immigration authorities in Vermont on Monday, said Mahdawi’s whereabouts are unknown.
Mahdawi, who was a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last spring, was arrested by Ice on Monday morning in Colchester, Vermont, while he was attending a naturalization interview, his lawyer said in a statement to the Guardian.
“We have not received confirmation as to his whereabouts despite numerous attempts to locate him,” his attorney, Luna Droubi, said.
“We have filed a habeas petition in the district of Vermont and have sought a temporary restraining order restraining the government from removing him from the jurisdiction or from the country.”
Key events
Today’s recap
At a meeting in the Oval Office today, Donald Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele both claimed they didn’t have the power to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcìa back to the US, despite the Trump administration conceding in court documents that he was deported by mistake and in the face of the supreme court upholding an order to facilitate his return. US attorney general Pam Bondi said the decision was El Salvador’s to make, adding: “If they want to, we would provide a plane.” Baselessly labeling Abrego Garcìa a “terrorist”, Bukele refused to order his return, calling the idea “preposterous”, and also ruled out releasing him within El Salvador. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller went further, saying that even if El Salvador did send Abrego Garcìa back to the US, the administration would deport him again. “No version of this legally ends with him ever living here,” he said. They all repeatedly referred to Abrego Garcìa as an “illegal alien”, which he was not, and Miller insisted that the illegal deportation was not a mistake. Meanwhile, Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador, and urged Bukele to build more Cecot-style prisons so the US could deport “as many as possible”.
It comes as another leader of Columbia University’s campus protest movement against Israel’s war on Gaza was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Palestinian student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, who has been in the US for the last 10 years, was detained when he went to attend his citizenship interview. He now faces an order to deport him to the occupied West Bank. Vermont lawmakers Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint have issued a statement calling for his immediate release: “This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.” Meanwhile, more than 370 alumni of Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow. Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine. The cases are the latest in a string of Ice arrests instigated by the Trump administration targeting pro-Palestinian students and scholars present in the US on visas or green cards.
Also today:
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Trump assigned culpability to Vladimir Putin for starting the war in Ukraine. It was buried among his usual claims that Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had somehow “let it happen”, but it was there. He told reporters: “That’s a war that should’ve never been allowed to start. Biden couldn’t stopped it and Zelenskyy could’ve stopped it, and Putin should’ve never started it. Everybody’s to blame.” It comes after Zelenskyy invited Trump to visit Ukraine to see the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion, following comments from the US president that appeared to play down Moscow’s latest deadly attack, the worst on civilians this year, calling it “a mistake” on Sunday.
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The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, warned that the chances of a US recession have “increased” in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and that an escalating trade war poses “material risks” for US and global growth. The Wall Street boss said the growing uncertainty over the fallout of US tariffs could spell trouble for companies and consumers and wreak havoc on the economy.
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Rome will host a second round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran following the “positive” and “constructive” talks held on Saturday in Oman. Steve Witkoff and lead Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi talked for roughly 45 minutes this weekend – a win for the Trump administration, which had wanted direct rather than indirect negotiations. It comes as Trump reiterated his threat of a potential military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if it does not abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon.
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The Department of Education is freezing about $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University. The announcement comes after the Ivy-league school has decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations, including shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
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The White House will ask Congress to cancel the $9.3bn already approved for foreign aid initiatives, public broadcasting and other programs. In a statement, the White House said, “American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’.”
In a statement, the White House said, “American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’.”
Donald Trump has long loathed public broadcasting. On the campaign trail last year, he posted on social media: “NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
Once Trump took office, Trump’s head of the Federal Communications Commission ordered an investigation of NPR and PBS.
“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Chairman Brendan Carr told the organizations “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.” Both organizations rejected the claim that they had violated any advertising regulations.
But Carr also indicated he was undertaking the investigation with an eye toward defunding public broadcasting.
The White House will ask Congress to cancel the $9.3bn already approved for foreign aid initiatives, public broadcasting and other programs, Politico reports.
From Politico:
Congress is expected to receive that so-called rescissions request when lawmakers return from their two-week recess later this month. To nix the funding, the House and Senate will each have to vote at a simple-majority threshold to approve the formal ask.
The White House package is expected to target funding for the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Institute of Peace and other programs, along with assistance to PBS and NPR through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
It would answer a call from congressional Republicans, who have ramped up their demands in recent months to defund public media companies for alleged bias against conservatives in programming and coverage. The CEOs of PBS and NPR testified at a hearing in March before the House Oversight subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency — the panel of lawmakers tasked with working in tandem with Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Per the New York Times, the plan is to rescind $1.2bn in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer backed organization that funds public media including NPR and PBS.
Trump administration freezes $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University
Diana Ramirez-Simon
The Department of Education is freezing about $2.3bn in federal funds to Harvard University, the agency said on Monday. The announcement comes after the Ivy-league school has decided to fight the White House’s demands that it crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations, including shutting down diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
“Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws,” said a member of a department taskforce on combating antisemitism in a statement.
The taskforce said it was freezing $2.2bn in grants and $60m in contract value to Harvard.
Lauren Gambino
Bernie Sanders called on Americans to “fight back” against Donald Trump’s slide toward authoritarianism, after the White House refused to return a Maryland father it admitted had been wrongly deported to El Salvador.
“Kilmar Abrego García is an innocent man and the father of three. He must not be allowed to rot in an El Salvadorian jail based on lies and defiance of our Constitution. He must be brought home immediately,” wrote the Vermont senator, who is leading a Fighting Oligarchy tour across the country urging Americans to stand up against the administration.
The supreme court said the US had to “facilitate” the return of Abrego García but during a meeting with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, the president’s advisers said there was no basis to return him. Bukele, whose government is being paid by the US to detain deportees in a notorious Salvadoran prison, said he didn’t have the power to return Abrego García.
“This is just another step forward in Trump’s move toward authoritarianism,” Sanders wrote. “Fight back!”
Hugo Lowell
The Trump administration escalated its stubborn defiance against securing the release of a man wrongly deported to El Salvador on Monday, advancing new misrepresentations of a US supreme court order.
The supreme court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was supposed to have been protected from deportation to El Salvador regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
But at an Oval Office meeting between Trump and El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Trump deferred to officials who gave extraordinary readings of the supreme court order and claimed the US was powerless to return Abrego Garcia to US soil.
“The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time,” said Trump’s policy chief Stephen Miller, about an order that, in fact, upheld a lower court’s directive to return Abrego Garcia.
Miller’s remarks went beyond the tortured reading offered by the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who also characterized the supreme court order as only requiring the administration to provide transportation to Abrego Garcia if released by El Salvador.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s up to them,” Bondi said. “The supreme court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would ‘facilitate’ it, meaning provide a plane.”
Harvard says it will not ‘yield’ to Trump demands over $9bn in funding cuts
Edward Helmore
Harvard University said that it will not comply with a new list of demands from the Trump administration issued last week that the government says are designed to crack down on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations at elite academic institutions.
In a message to the Harvard community, the university president, Alan Garber, vowed that the school would not yield to the government’s pressure campaign. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber said.
The Trump administration said it would review $9bn of federal grants and contracts, including Harvard’s research hospitals, as part of its effort to “root out antisemitism”.
In a letter last week from the government’s antisemitism taskforce, the university was accused of having “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment”.
The Trump administration has also demanded that Harvard ban face masks and close its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which it says teach students and staff “to make snap judgments about each other based on crude race and identity stereotypes”. The administration also demanded that Harvard cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The administration further asked Harvard to reform its admissions process for international students to screen for students “supportive of terrorism and anti-Semitism” – and to report international students to federal authorities if they break university conduct policies.
University faculties are also under the government’s microscope as it has called for “reducing the power held by faculty (whether tenured or untenured) and administrators more committed to activism than scholarship”.
Harvard’s announced resistance to the administration’s demands comes as Trump’s federal government pits itself against several Ivy League universities over intellectual and political freedoms. The dispute has been playing out in the courts over efforts by the administration to deport several postgraduate students holding provisional citizenship or student visas over pro-Palestinian demonstrations that the government alleges were shows of support for terrorism.
Schumer calls for release of wrongly deported Maryland man: ‘due process was grossly violated’
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called for the immediate release and return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the US.
“The law is clear, due process was grossly violated, and the supreme court has clearly spoken that the Trump administration must facilitate and effectuate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He should be returned to the US immediately,” Schumer said. “Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all.”
Silky Shah, executive director of the human rights advocacy group Detention Watch Network, said that Donald Trump is taking steps to “normalize the abduction and removal of people to another country without due process”.
“Today’s White House meeting between Trump and Bukele should alarm everyone. Trump is taking monumental yet calculated steps to expand the scope of who can be subjected to arrest, incarceration and deportation, and normalize the abduction and removal of people to another country without due process,” Shah said. “The Trump and Bukele partnership to outsource incarceration to El Salvador is setting a dangerous precedent of total disdain for basic human rights – not only for migrants, but for everyone in the United States, including residents and citizens, and especially Black and brown people who are disproportionately targeted by the US’s unjust criminal legal system.”
Mohsen Mahdawi’s location unknown after Ice arrest in Vermont
Anna Betts
The attorney of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and student at Columbia University who was apprehended by US immigration authorities in Vermont on Monday, said Mahdawi’s whereabouts are unknown.
Mahdawi, who was a leader of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia last spring, was arrested by Ice on Monday morning in Colchester, Vermont, while he was attending a naturalization interview, his lawyer said in a statement to the Guardian.
“We have not received confirmation as to his whereabouts despite numerous attempts to locate him,” his attorney, Luna Droubi, said.
“We have filed a habeas petition in the district of Vermont and have sought a temporary restraining order restraining the government from removing him from the jurisdiction or from the country.”
After Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland announced he would travel to El Salvador to try to visit his constituent Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the White House responded by falsely equating Garcia to an “illegal immigrant gang member”.
In a post on X, the administration wrote to Van Hollen: “Rachel Morin, a Maryland mother, was actually your constituent and she was murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member. Now, you’re now fighting to return one to the United States.”
Morin was raped, beaten and strangled to death in August 2023, and Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez, a Salvadorian native who illegally entered the United States in 2023 was charged with her death. He has not yet been convicted – a verdict in the case is expected this week.
Abrego Garcia, meanwhile, was not convicted of any crimes and there is no evidence he was a member of a gang. He had, in fact, fled gang violence in his home country when he came to the US in 2011. A judge had granted him a “withholding of removal”, allowing him to stay in the US legally. The administration admitted in court filings that Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador due to an administrative error.
Still, the administration has continued in its rhetoric to cast Abrego Garcia as a criminal.
On Fox News, Trump adviser Stephen Miller contradicted the justice department’s court filing conceding that Abrego Garcia was removed in error, and went as far as to claim: “He was not mistakenly sent to El Salvador. This was the right person sent to the right place.”
The day so far
At a meeting in the Oval Office today, Donald Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele both claimed they didn’t have the power to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the US, despite the Trump administration conceding in court documents that he was deported by mistake and in the face of the supreme court upholding an order to facilitate his return. US attorney general Pam Bondi said the decision was El Salvador’s to make, adding: “If they want to, we would provide a plane.” Baselessly labeling Abrego Garcia a “terrorist”, Bukele refused to order his return, calling the idea “preposterous”, and also ruled out releasing him within El Salvador. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller went further, saying that even if El Salvador did send Abrego Garcia back to the US, the administration would deport him again. “No version of this legally ends with him ever living here,” he said. They all repeatedly referred to Abrego Garcia as an “illegal alien”, which he was not, and Miller insisted that the illegal deportation was not a mistake. Meanwhile, Trump reaffirmed that he is “all for” deporting naturalized American citizens to El Salvador, and urged Bukele to build more Cecot-style prisons so the US could deport “as many as possible”.
It comes as another leader of Columbia University’s campus protest movement against Israel’s war in Gaza was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). Palestinian student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi, who has been in the US for the last ten years, was detained when he went to attend his citizenship interview. He now faces an order to deport him to the occupied West Bank. Vermont lawmakers Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint have issued a statement calling for his immediate release: “This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.” Meanwhile, more than 370 alumni of Georgetown University joined 65 current students there in signing on to a letter opposing immigration authorities’ detention of Dr Badar Khan Suri, a senior postdoctoral fellow. Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago – and claiming he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine. The cases are the latest in a string of Ice arrests instigated by the Trump administration targeting pro-Palestinian students and scholars present in the US on visas or green cards.
Also today:
-
Trump assigned culpability to Vladimir Putin for starting the war in Ukraine. It was buried among his usual claims that Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had somehow “let it happen”, but it was there. He told reporters: “That’s a war that should’ve never been allowed to start. Biden couldn’t stopped it and Zelenskyy could’ve stopped it, and Putin should’ve never started it. Everybody’s to blame.” It comes after Zelenskyy invited Trump to visit Ukraine to see the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion, following comments from the US president that appeared to play down Moscow’s latest deadly attack, the worst on civilians this year, calling it “a mistake” on Sunday.
-
The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, warned that the chances of a US recession have “increased” in the wake of Trump’s tariffs and that an escalating trade war poses “material risks” for US and global growth. The Wall Street boss said the growing uncertainty over the fallout of US tariffs could spell trouble for companies and consumers and wreak havoc on the economy.
-
Rome will host a second round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran following the “positive” and “constructive” talks held on Saturday in Oman. Steve Witkoff and lead Iranian negotiator Abbas Araghchi talked for roughly 45 minutes this weekend – a win for the Trump administration, which had wanted direct rather than indirect negotiations. It comes as Trump reiterated his threat of a potential military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities if it does not abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon.
Vermont lawmakers have responded to the Trump administration’s detention of Mohsen Mahdawi. Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint said in a statement:
Earlier today, Mohsen Mahdawi of White River Junction, Vermont, walked into an immigration office for what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process. Instead, he was arrested and removed in handcuffs by plain-clothed, armed, individuals with their faces covered. These individuals refused to provide any information as to where he was being taken or what would happen to him. This is immoral, inhumane, and illegal. Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.
Goldman Sachs boss says chances of US recession have increased after Trump tariffs
Kalyeena Makortoff
The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, has warned that the chances of a US recession have “increased” in the wake of Donald Trump’s tariffs and that an escalating trade war poses “material risks” for US and global growth.
The Wall Street boss said the growing uncertainty over the fallout of US tariffs could spell trouble for companies and consumers and wreak havoc on the economy.
“We are entering the second quarter with a markedly different operating environment than earlier this year,” he told analysts during an earnings call.
The prospect of a recession has increased, with growing indications that economic activity is slowing down around the world.
The growing uncertainty had made it hard for Goldman clients to make important business decisions, he added.
This uncertainty around the path forward, and fears over the potentially escalating effects of a trade war, have created material risks to the US and global economy.
Solomon’s warning came despite a temporary roll-back by Trump, who declared a 90-day pause on higher-band tariffs for countries outside China last week. The US president also announced plans to exclude some electronic products from steep reciprocal tariffs on Chinese goods.
Solomon said he was “encouraged by the US administration’s recent actions to pursue a more gradual policy process that allows for considered negotiations with many countries” but warned markets would continue to be volatile given that “how policy will evolve is still unknown”.
Ice arrests Palestinian green card holder and student protest leader from Columbia University
Another leader of Columbia University’s campus protest movement against Israel’s war in Gaza has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), The Intercept reports.
Palestinian student and green card holder Mohsen Mahdawi has been in the US for the last ten years and was one of the leaders of the pro-Palestine student protest movement until spring 2024.
In a statement to The Intercept, Mahdawi’s attorney Luna Droubi said:
Mohsen Mahdawi was unlawfully detained today for no reason other than his Palestinian identity. He came to this country hoping to be free to speak out about the atrocities he has witnessed, only to be punished for such speech.”
Mahdawi’s lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition on Monday morning challenging the legality of his detention, alleging the government was violating his statutory and due process rights by punishing him for speech related to Palestine and Israel.
The filing said it appears that Mahdawi was facing deportation under the obscure provision used in other recent cases that gives secretary of state Marco Rubio the right to unilaterally declare immigrants as threats to US foreign policy.
The Intercept reports that Mahdawi sheltered in place for three weeks for fear of being arrested by Ice agents, as his friend and fellow Columbia activist Mahmoud Khalil has been.
When he attended an appointment for his US citizenship interview at the Colchester USCIS office, authorities took him into custody. He now faces an order to deport him to the occupied West Bank.
“It’s kind of a death sentence,” Mahdawi said in reference to escalating attacks by the Israeli military and settlers on Palestinians living there. “Because my people are being killed unjustly in an indiscriminate way.”
Mahdawi’s case is the latest in a string of Ice arrests instigated by the Trump administration targeting pro-Palestinian students and scholars present in the US on visas or green cards.
“This is the outcome,” Mahdawi told The Intercept. “I will be either living or imprisoned or killed by the apartheid system.”
