Another pro-Palestinian student at Columbia University has been arrested over protests against Israel’s merciless aggression on the Gaza Strip, amid the US administration’s mounting suppression of anti-Tel Aviv academic rallies.

Mohsen Mahdawi, an organizer of pro-Palestinian protests at the top New York City college, was arrested by immigration officials on Monday as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship.

Video shared on social media apparently shows Mahdawi being escorted into a car by two officers wearing police jackets.

Mahdawi, a green card holder who is due to graduate next month from Columbia University, was detained in Colchester, Vermont, with his lawyer saying he had been taken into custody “in direct retaliation” for his role in campus demonstrations against the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

“The Trump administration detained Mohsen Mahdawi in direct retaliation for his advocacy on behalf of Palestinians and because of his identity as a Palestinian,” Lawyer Luna Droubi said.

“His detention is an attempt to silence those who speak out against the atrocities in Gaza. It is also unconstitutional.”

The attorney applied to a federal court for a temporary restraining order to prevent US immigration authorities from moving the pro-Palestinian student out of Vermont or expelling him from the US.

Defending the Columbia University student, Vermont’s three members of Congress—Democrats Sen. Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders—called the arrest “immoral, inhumane, and illegal.”

The lawmakers said, “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… Mr. Mahdawi, a legal resident of the United States, must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”

Sanders said on X that Mahdawi “was illegally detained by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) during what was supposed to be the final step in his citizenship process.”

The senator said he “must be afforded due process under the law and immediately released from detention.”

Born in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Mahdawi moved to the US in 2014 and co-founded Columbia’s Palestinian Student Society.

As an outspoken critic of Israel’s war on Gaza, he did an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes program last December and shed light on the Israeli genocide in the Palestinian territory.

Facing forcible deportation, Mahdawi joins other students like Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk and Alireza Doroudi, who are all being held for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the United States.

US President Donald Trump has begun following through on a threat to deport all non-citizen university activists with ties to the pro-Palestine protests, which rocked the US last spring, with students staging daily protests in college campuses across the country for weeks.  

The crackdown intensified after US immigration agents arrested Mahmoud Kahlil, a graduate of Columbia University, on March 8. Kahlil, who is being held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana, faces deportation for his role in pro-Palestinian campus protests.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who personally signed off on his arrest, recently said that Washington had revoked at least 300 foreign students’ visas.

Trump officials have accused these students of being “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the US over their condemnation of Israel’s months-long genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, at least 50,983 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and 116,274 other individuals have been injured in the brutal Israeli military onslaught on Gaza since October 7, 2023.