A unanimous decision from the 2nd Circuit just overturned a lower court order for a pro-Hamas activist. It allows ICE to re-arrest Mohsen Mahdawi and deport him.
The 2nd Circuit ruled that the lower court judge, an Obama appointee “overstepped his authority.” He intervened in Mahdawi’s case before it had moved fully through the immigration court system.
Mohsen Mahsawi is a student organizer and troublemaker.
Get the Foreign Troublemakers Out
The Obama judge in Vermont likened the government’s efforts to expel him and other activists to McCarthyist repression, the AP reports.
The ruling mirrors a separate appellate panel’s decision earlier this year against Mahmoud Khalil. Khalil, another troublemaker, was a former classmate of Mahdawi’s at Columbia University, according to the AP.
As with the ruling against Khalil, the appeals court did not weigh in on the merits of Mahdawi’s claim that he was unconstitutionally targeted for criticizing Israel. He can seek a review from the federal courts over those claims once he has exhausted his options in the immigration courts, the panel wrote.
Mahdawi, 35, is currently appealing an order of removal issued against him in immigration court. An emailed inquiry to his attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union was not immediately returned.
This is absurd. These are people who don’t belong here. Mohsen should have the right to go before an immigration judge, but that’s it. Democrats brought in millions of criminals and troublemakers. At this rate, they will stay to destroy us from within.
BREAKING: Pro-Hamas 15-year undergrad Mohsen Mahdawi will be deported back to Jordan.
The Second Circuit just overruled a rogue judge who had let Mahdawi back onto the streets.
Get him out. America is not a taxpayer-funded campus for foreign agitators. https://t.co/vTa5b7IXYd pic.twitter.com/2kYLZsXvaB
— Senator Eric Schmitt (@SenEricSchmitt) July 21, 2026
Very bad draw for Mr. Mahdawi at the 2nd Circuit. Decision by Judge Livingston (Bush) and joined by Judges Nardini (Trump 1.0) and Menashi (Trump 1.0).
Expect this case to be taken en banc, especially since a motions panel previously ruled against the Trump admin’s legal arg. https://t.co/fknwsb9rne
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) July 21, 2026
