“They Want to Silence Me”: Columbia Student Mohsen Mahdawi on ICE Jail, Palestine, Activism, Buddhism

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.”