'I am not afraid of you': Columbia student rebukes Trump after judge orders his release
A Palestinian college student has been released on a judge's order after weeks of detention by immigration authorities.
Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi was released from federal custody on Wednesday morning after a Vermont judge ruled that he should be released under certain conditions, reported WPTZ-TV.
“I am saying it clear and loud,” Mahdawi said after his release. “To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”
Mahdawi will be allowed to keep his permanent residence in Vermont and allowed to travel to New York City to finish his studies at Columbia University, where he took part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
"Protests of the type led by Mahdawi potentially undermine the peace process underway in the Middle East," said secretary of state Marco Rubio in a court filing justifying his detention, saying his activism was "reinforcing antisemitic sentiment."
The judge who ordered his release compared the detention of migrants and immigrants who took part in campus protests to the infamous McCarthy era "Red Scare."
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