Gaza First Amendment Alert (May 2, 2025)

Columbia Student Facing Deportation for Political Speech Granted Bail, Israeli Far Right Minister Visits US Prompting Attacks on Protests

Mohsen Mahdawi Ordered Free Pending Deportation Proceeding

On April 30, 2025, federal District Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford granted bail to Mohsen Mahdawi. As reported in the previous edition of the Gaza First Amendment Alert, Mahdawi is a graduate student at Columbia who Secretary of State Marco Rubio is seeking to deport on the basis that his presence in the US poses adverse foreign policy consequences. The 28-page ruling weighed a number of highly technical arguments about when federal courts could exercise jurisdiction over immigration proceedings and when federal courts could grant bail. The judge found that Mahdawi had a strong likelihood of prevailing under established First Amendment case law. When ruling extraordinary circumstances existed to justify the granting of bail, Judge Crawford compared the Trump administration’s actions against pro-Palestinian international students to the Palmer Raids and the politically motivated deportations of the McCarthy-era.

Although Mahdawi is no longer in immigration detention, it is not the end of his ordeal. Mahdawi is granted release on his own recognizance during the pendency of his habeas case. In addition to his habeas petition in federal court, Mahdawi is still subject to removal proceedings in immigration court. Immigration courts are not part of the federal judiciary but part of the Department of Justice. In Mahmoud Khalil’s case, an immigration judge ruled he could be deported while a federal judge is still hearing a challenge to the constitutionality of his deportation.

Many of the filings in the case remain under seal, though NBC News apparently was able to examine them. The judge’s ruling therefore provided one of the only windows into what is being argued. It also provided disturbing new information about Mahdawi’s arrest. As previously reported in the Gaza First Amendment Alert, Mahdawi was arrested after showing up for his citizenship interview. According to Wednesday's decision, Mahdawi completed the interview, passed the citizenship test, and signed a document asserting his willingness to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States. After that point, the interviewer left the room falsely claiming he needed to check on something. Homeland Security Investigations agents entered the room wearing masks and arrested Mahdawi without presenting a warrant. They attempted to transport him to Louisiana but missed the flight. In the interim, his attorney was able to file a habeas petition in Vermont, making it impossible for him to be transferred to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana like other targets of Rubio.

US Visit by Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir Prompts Suppression of Free Speech

In April 2025, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the US. Ben-Gvir is a far-right politician associated with the Kahanist movement. Ben-Gvir lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and has been accused of inciting settler-violence. Prior to joining the Israeli cabinet, Ben-Gvir was convicted in Israel for inciting racism and providing support to Kach, a terrorist organization. Kach was one of the only Zionist organizations designated by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, though they were delisted by the Biden Administration in 2022 on the grounds they were no longer active.

Ben-Gvir’s visit to the US, unsurprisingly, elicited protest. Shabtai hosted Ben-Gvir at Yale University, prompting multiple members of the Jewish leadership society to quit, with one resignee stating, “It’d be like a white society hosting the Ku Klux Klan.” In addition to internal pressure, 200 protesters organized an encampment in protest of the talk. In spite of a pledge to stay the night, the encampment disbanded after a Yale “Free Expression Facilitator” distributed cards reading “Please stop your current action immediately. If you do not, you may risk university disciplinary action and/or arrest.” After the rally Yale University suspended the student club status of Yalies4Palestine, which maintains they did not organize the protest, for promoting it. The head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, announced the DOJ is investigating the Yale protests.

In New York City, an initial speaking event hosted for Ben-Gvir by Beis Shmuel Chabad at Brooklyn’s Jewish Children’s Museum was canceled. Ben-Gvir did speak at Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, although a spokesperson for Chabad made clear the event was not officially sanctioned. When individuals protested the talk, a mob formed and chanted in Hebrew “death to Arabs,” a common chant amongst the Israeli far-right. A video shows the anti-Palestinian mob chanting “death to Arabs” following and attacking a woman in a blue scarf. She was not in fact a protester, but a neighborhood resident observing the scene. She has blamed police for not doing more to protect her and called for a hate crime investigation.

Ben-Gvir was hosted at Mar-a-Lago and met with four Republican members of the House of Representatives. According to the Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization, Ben-Gvir directed his security detail to harass a participant in the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations’ (USCMO) 10th Annual National Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Another video shows him in a verbal exchange with members of Code Pink.

In response to Ben-Gvir, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) introduced a bill designed to prevent settler violence in the West Bank. The pro-Israel Democrat, who is the longest-standing Jewish member of Congress, also spoke out against Ben-Gvir in New York.

UCLA Riot Police Attacks Students Viewing The Encampments

Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA organized an event where 200 protesters gathered outside to watch The Encampments, a film about the student protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the violent police reponse to them. According to BreakThrough News, the outdoor screening was itself stormed by police. According to The Daily Bruin, three of the protesters were arrested and given ‘stay away’ from campus orders.

Texas’s “America First Governor” Threatens San Marcos Over Ceasefire Resolution

The city of San Marcos, Texas is poised to vote on a symbolic resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo. The resolution noted Texans would benefit from reallocation of US taxpayer money spent on Israeli weapons to domestic purposes. Texas’s Republican Governor Greg Abbot has responded by accusing the resolution of being antisemitic, stating “anti-Israel” policies are “anti-Texas,” and accusing the city of potentially violating a Texas law prohibiting boycotts of Israel by those who contract with the state of Texas. Media coverage of the threatening letter has juxtaposed Abbot’s actions with his self-proclaimed “America first” stance.

Israel kills journalist in Gaza, arrests another in West Bank

The Israeli military targeted another journalist for assassination this month as an IDF airstrike struck the tent of Palestinian journalist Saeed Amin Abu Hassanein in the central Gaza community Deir al-Balah. The strike also killed Abu Hassanein’s wife and their daughter.

Abu Hassanein had been an audio engineer for Al-Aqsa Radio for nearly two decades. The station condemned Abu Hassanein’s killing as an effort to silence Palestinian journalism and conceal Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel has arrested 58-year-old reporter Ali al-Samoudi in the West Bank in a raid on his son’s house in Jenin, claiming without evidence his support for “terrorist organizations.” The IDF interrogated al-Samoudi and then brought him to a hospital, but declined to provide the name of the facility to his family.

The IDF has killed hundreds of journalists in Gaza and, according to data from the Committee to Protect Journalists, arrested at least 79 journalists in the West Bank and Gaza since October 2023.

Last year, Defending Rights & Dissent co-organized a coalition of western journalists in opposition to U.S. funding of the IDF in light of its ongoing killing of journalists in Palestine.

Senate HELP Committee delays vote on anti-free speech bill

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension (HELP) Committee has delayed a vote to advance the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2025 (S.558) to the full senate floor. The Act would codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which explicitly includes criticism of Israel, an effort to turn protest of Israel’s actions in Palestine into a civil rights violation.

In a markup hearing, the committee’s Democrats as well as Republican Rand Paul introduced or supported a number of amendments to the bill, including several that confirm the First Amendment right to criticize the genocide in Gaza and to participate in non-violent free speech like campus protests. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced an amendment to protect criticism of "Benjamin Netanyahu’s led war effort,” while Sen. Ed Markey’s (D-MA) amendment protected the rights of student protesters.

Debate over the proposed amendments pushed the meeting to its two-hour limit, at which point Committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called for a recess and announced the vote would be deferred.