In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S. immigration custody, where he was held in retaliation for his speech in support of Palestinian rights. Mahdawi’s detention has led him to reflect on the “interconnectedness between injustices,” as multiple members of his family in Palestine have been “unjustly” incarcerated in Israeli jails. “Now I can feel their pain,” says Mahdawi. Despite the U.S. government and pro-Israel groups’ attempts to silence his calls for an end to genocide in Gaza, he adds, “I share my pain with the world.”

Mohsen Mahdawi is a legal permanent resident of the United States. In April Mahdawi went to his naturalization interview in Vermont, the final step on his path to obtaining U.S. citizenship. But instead of receiving his citizenship, Mahdawi was kidnapped by armed and masked DHS agents in plain clothes who prevented him from interacting with his lawyer. DHS had planned to fly him to Louisiana, but he missed the flight and was instead held in a prison in Vermont, which he credits with his speedy legal process compared to students who have been held in similar situations for months.

In this, his first interview since being freed from prison, Mahdawi goes into detail about his ordeal at the hands of ICE and his family and friends’ suffering in Palestine, and it is well worth watching the full interview to hear Mahdawi speak about his life in his own words.

His final message is: “The same message that the Gazan people have been sending to us, we’re gaining strength from them… No more universities for students to attend or to graduate from in Gaza, a painful reality. They are sending us a message that there is so much more to hope for than giving up on the idea of justice and surrendering to fear and to violence. So, I say, stay strong, and we will celebrate under the sun in a matter of a very short time.”

(Taken from an email sent to me by Never Again Action.)