Feds Resume Deportation Hearings for Mohsen Mahdawi Before Judge Nina Froes

(UNITED STATES) — Immigration Judge Nina Froes terminated Mohsen Mahdawi’s removal proceedings on February 17, 2026, ending the government’s case for now after finding federal authorities failed to authenticate a memorandum purportedly signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The ruling matters immediately because it halted the effort to deport Mahdawi, a legal U.S. permanent resident, while leaving the government a path to keep fighting. Froes terminated the case without prejudice, which means the government can still appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals or file a new case on the same grounds.

For now, though, the proceedings are over. As of March 17, 2026, there were no public announcements showing that proceedings against Mahdawi had resumed.

At the center of the case was a memorandum the government said was signed by Rubio. That document allegedly argued that Mahdawi’s pro-Palestinian activism threatened U.S. foreign policy by “undermining the Middle East peace process” and “reinforcing antisemitic sentiment.”

Froes’ ruling turned on a basic evidentiary question: whether that memorandum had been properly authenticated. The judge found the Trump administration had not done so, and that failure undercut a central piece of the government’s case against Mahdawi.

In immigration court, that kind of evidentiary dispute can shape whether a case moves forward at all. Here, the reliability of the memorandum mattered because the government relied on it to connect Mahdawi’s activism to foreign policy concerns and to argue for his removal.

Mahdawi’s case has drawn attention because of who he is and what status he holds in the United States. He is a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank and has been a lawful permanent resident since 2015.

He also graduated from Columbia University in May 2025. That combination — a recent graduate, a permanent resident, and a person facing deportation tied to political activism — raised the stakes of the proceedings and helped place the case within a wider fight over speech, immigration enforcement, and the government’s handling of pro-Palestinian activism.

Federal authorities detained Mahdawi in April 2025 during a citizenship interview in Vermont. He spent two weeks in custody before U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford ordered his release on bail on April 30, 2025, after Mahdawi filed a habeas petition.

That did not end all of the litigation around his detention. A separate federal district court challenge to his detention is still pending.

The immigration case and the federal court challenge have moved on separate tracks, but both have shaped Mahdawi’s legal position over the past year. One dealt with whether he could remain free while fighting the government; the other dealt with whether the government had a valid basis to remove him.

Mahdawi responded after the immigration ruling with a statement that framed the decision as a defense of constitutional protections and court oversight. “I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government’s attempts to trample on due process. This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice.”

His lawyers used even sharper language. Attorneys for Mahdawi, including lawyers from the ACLU and Cyrus D. Mehta of Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners PLLC, described the ruling as ending a “witch hunt” based on protected speech.

Brett Max Kaufman of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy emphasized the need for federal court review of proceedings like Mahdawi’s. That response cast the judge’s decision as more than a procedural win, arguing it went to the treatment of speech in immigration enforcement.

The government answered in very different terms. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin accused Mahdawi of leading “pro-terrorist riots” and signaled that federal authorities were not backing down.

“No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that,” McLaughlin said.

Those competing statements captured the broader fight around the case. Mahdawi and his legal team cast the proceedings as punishment for protected political expression, while DHS tied the case to a much tougher view of protest activity and national security concerns.

Froes’ decision did not settle that larger political argument. It addressed the record before the court and, in particular, the government’s failure to properly authenticate the Rubio memorandum it was relying on.

That distinction is important to the case’s posture now. The termination without prejudice did not bar the government from trying again, but it did mean the case could not continue in its current form after the judge found the evidentiary problem.

For Mahdawi, the ruling ended the active removal proceedings that had put his immigration status at risk. For the government, it preserved options while forcing any renewed effort to confront the evidentiary flaw identified by the judge.

The result also fit into a broader pattern of recent court action involving attempts to deport pro-Palestinian activists. Mahdawi’s case aligns with other recent blocks on such deportations, including the case involving Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk last month.

That wider context has made Mahdawi’s case part of a larger legal and political struggle, even though Froes’ order focused on a narrower question. The immediate issue before the immigration court was not the full debate over protest, foreign policy, or campus activism, but whether the government had properly supported one of its core claims.

Still, the memorandum itself showed the theory federal authorities were advancing. By alleging that Mahdawi’s activism was “undermining the Middle East peace process” and “reinforcing antisemitic sentiment,” the document sought to tie his speech and organizing to consequences the government said affected U.S. foreign policy.

Froes’ ruling prevented that theory from carrying the case forward in the form presented to her. Because the memorandum was not authenticated, the court did not accept it as a reliable basis for removal proceedings.

Mahdawi’s status as a lawful permanent resident since 2015 sharpened the legal stakes. Removal proceedings against permanent residents can carry lasting consequences, and in this case the court’s decision stopped that process at a moment when Mahdawi had already spent time in ICE custody and had to seek release through a habeas petition.

His detention in Vermont during a citizenship interview added another layer to the dispute. The setting of the arrest, followed by two weeks in custody and a bail order from Crawford on April 30, 2025, became part of the case’s public profile as his lawyers challenged both the detention and the deportation effort.

The pending federal district court challenge means not all of Mahdawi’s litigation has ended. Even with the immigration proceedings terminated, the separate court fight over his detention remains unresolved.

That leaves Mahdawi in a position that is more stable than it was before Froes ruled, but not entirely free of legal uncertainty. The deportation case has been terminated, yet the government retains the ability to appeal or refile, and the detention challenge continues in federal court.

No public move to restart the case had emerged by Tuesday, March 17, 2026. That absence of any new filing or announcement has become part of the story itself, because it marks the gap between the government’s hard public rhetoric and the current procedural reality in Mahdawi’s case.

For now, the clearest legal fact is Froes’ February 17, 2026 order. It ended the removal proceedings because the government did not authenticate the Rubio memorandum that was central to its case, and it left Mahdawi, a Palestinian permanent resident and Columbia University graduate, outside active deportation proceedings while the larger legal and political battle around his case continues.