By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, July 21 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a lower court lacked the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to release pro-Palestinian advocate Mohsen Mahdawi from immigration detention, in a decision that could pave the way for his eventual re-arrest.
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 seek their release quickly on the grounds of an alleged violation of their First Amendment rights.
The panel, which included two judges appointed by Trump during his first term and a third appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, did not order Mahdawi’s immediate re-arrest.
Mahdawi could ask a full panel of all the 2nd Circuit’s active judges to hear the case, or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Mahdawi, said there was no basis to deport or re-detain Mahdawi while the appeals process played out.
“The government is claiming the unprecedented power to detain people for months or even years on end to censor their speech, with no ability to challenge their detention in court,” the ACLU’s Michael Tan, who argued Mahdawi’s case before the 2nd Circuit, said in a statement.
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. Crawford was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.
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.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration enforcement, in a statement called the decision “a win for public safety and the rule of law.”
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.
“I still have faith that the full court will correct the legal error and restore the constitutional principles that protect all people equally,” Mahdawi said in a statement.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis and William Maclean)
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