During an unannounced assembly with President Donald Trump final week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani introduced up 4 pro-Palestinian protesters pursued by federal immigration authorities: Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Leqaa Kordia.
“I asked that these cases be dropped,” Mamdani stated at a ribbon slicing ceremony on the Weeksville Heritage Center Friday. “And the president said that he would look into it.”
The mayor stated he additionally spoke about Ellie Aghayeva, a Columbia undergraduate taken into custody by federal brokers, throughout his assembly with the president Thursday. He stated Trump knowledgeable him she could be launched and Aghayeva was out of custody later that day.
The different 4 are amongst numerous pro-Palestinian noncitizens focused by federal immigration authorities final 12 months, after protests in opposition to Israel’s navy operation that devastated large parts of Gaza swept via the US. Trump had pledged to crack down on noncitizens protesting Israel, whom he framed as “Hamas sympathizers.” The wave of arrests sparked outrage and concern from civil rights advocates, who’ve argued the detainees have been focused for constitutionally protected speech.
Only one of many 4 – Leqaa Kordia, a 33-year-old Palestinian girl who had lived in Paterson, New Jersey, for near a decade – is in custody, in keeping with her attorneys. The different three are preventing their immigration instances from house.
The authorities “targeted individuals who had spoken out in various ways and to various degrees in support of Palestinian human rights,” Brett Max Kaufman, a senior employees legal professional on the ACLU who’s representing Khalil and Mahdawi, informed NCS. “It took these actions against them, to detain and remove them from the country, as retaliation for that speech.”
A White House official stated there was no replace to supply. NCS has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for touch upon every of the people.
The continued immigration proceedings in opposition to the 4 protesters come after a federal judge lambasted Trump and his administration for attacking free speech “under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition of Anti-Semitism” utilized in efforts to deport pro-Palestinian college students.
Here’s what we all know in regards to the 4 and the place their instances stand:
Mahmoud Khalil, a 31-year-old with a inexperienced card then learning for a grasp’s program at Columbia University, was the primary pro-Palestinian pupil protester arrested by federal immigration authorities. Khalil, an Algerian citizen who was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, had acted as a spokesperson for Columbia’s pro-Palestinian encampment. Mimicking anti-Vietnam War demonstrators, college students erected the tent encampment to name for Columbia to divest from its educational ties to Israel and its investments in weapons producers and tech corporations that do enterprise with Israel’s authorities.
In video captured by his spouse, who was eight months pregnant on the time, Khalil was detained by plainclothes federal brokers at his university-owned condominium on March 8, 2025.
The brokers didn’t have a warrant however stated they have been appearing on orders from the State Department. They first informed Khalil they have been revoking his student visa. When his spouse confirmed brokers his inexperienced card, they stated “the State Department had ‘revoked that too.’” He was swiftly transported a whole lot of miles away to Louisiana, the place he was detained on the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center.
To justify Khalil’s deportation order, the State Department cited a little-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that enables for the removing of noncitizens primarily based on “otherwise lawful” beliefs if the Secretary of State determines their presence or actions pose a menace to US overseas coverage pursuits.
In immigration court docket, the federal authorities submitted a quick memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that stated letting Khalil stay within the nation would undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.”
Khalil spent over three months in immigration detention, lacking the start of his son. In May, a choose dominated in federal court docket the overseas coverage foundation for his detention was likely unconstitutional. He was released in June 2025 after the identical choose stated he was not a flight danger or hazard to public security and cited “extraordinary circumstances” within the case, together with a “due process violative effort to punish” him.
But he nonetheless could face deportation: In January, a federal appeals panel reversed a lower court decision that had launched him from detention, figuring out the federal court docket doesn’t have jurisdiction till his immigration case involves a detailed.
That resolution doesn’t go into impact “until we exhaust our appeals in the Third Circuit,” Kaufman, the legal professional on the ACLU representing Khalil and Mahdawi, informed NCS. Kaufman stated Khalil’s legal professionals plan to file a petition for evaluation by the complete appellate court docket by the tip of March.
Khalil has maintained he was focused for constitutionally protected free speech.
“My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza,” he wrote in a 2025 letter from detention.
Immigration officers moved to deport Yunseo Chung, a then-21-year-old Columbia undergraduate from South Korea with everlasting resident standing, in March 2025 after she and different college students have been arrested by native legislation enforcement at a sit-in on the college.
Federal immigration brokers got here searching for her at her mother and father’ house and searched her Columbia dorm, in keeping with a lawsuit filed in federal court docket. And a federal legislation enforcement official informed Chung’s legal professionals her lawful everlasting resident standing was being revoked.
In the lawsuit, Chung’s legal professionals described her tried deportation as “an unprecedented and unjustifiable assault on First Amendment and other rights, one that cannot stand basic legal scrutiny.”
A choose blocked immigration officers from detaining Chung in a March order, saying there was “no indication she was a foreign threat.”
“After the constant dread in the back of my mind over the past few weeks, this decision feels like a million pounds off of my chest,” Chung wrote in a statement after the order.
The Justice Department stated in an announcement on the time that it “makes no apologies for its efforts to defend President Trump’s agenda in court and protect Jewish Americans from vile antisemitism.”
Mohsen Mahdawi, a 35-year-old Palestinian pupil with a inexperienced card learning at Columbia, was detained in Vermont after he arrived for a naturalization appointment on April 14 final 12 months.
Mahdawi was born and raised within the Israeli-occupied West Bank and got here to the US in 2014. Like Khalil, he had been concerned in pro-Palestinian activism on Columbia’s campus, although he took a step back from organizing in March 2024. He spoke publicly about witnessing mates and family members killed by the Israeli navy and stated he was shot within the leg by an Israeli soldier when he was 15, according to the Columbia Spectator.
During the April 14 appointment, the scholar passed his naturalization test and was given the oath to develop into a US citizen – solely to be detained by Homeland Security Investigations brokers on web site, in keeping with his attorneys. He was launched on bond in May.
After Mahdawi was launched, the federal government continued efforts to deport him, utilizing the identical overseas coverage rationale as in Khalil’s case, the AP reported. Mahdawi additionally has an ongoing case in federal district court arguing he was unlawfully detained. He began a grasp’s diploma at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs final fall, according to the ACLU.
Earlier this month, a choose blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mahdawi, citing a procedural misstep by authorities attorneys, the AP reported.
But the federal government can nonetheless enchantment that call. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, described Mahdawi as a frontrunner of “pro-terrorist riots” whose visa ought to be revoked.
“No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that,” she stated in an announcement, in keeping with the AP.
Kordia is the one protester among the many 4 talked about by Mamdani in custody.
She was detained lower than per week after Khalil and flown to a detention middle in Texas, court docket paperwork present, the place she’s now been confined for near a 12 months. Her legal professionals in court docket filings stated she’s confronted severe well being challenges in detention, together with a seizure in February, and she’s been denied the fitting to observe key tenets of her religion like consuming halal and praying 5 occasions a day.
Her legal professionals say Kordia, who grew up within the West Bank, was focused due to a pro-Palestinian protest she attended exterior the gates at Columbia’s campus in April 2024. She was arrested by the NYPD however rapidly launched, and the fees in opposition to her have been dismissed, in keeping with court docket paperwork.
Kordia had come to the US first on a vacationer visa and then transitioned to a pupil visa, learning English whereas working as a waitress and at a clothes retailer and serving to take care of her US citizen mom and brother, her attorneys stated. In 2022, after her family-based visa petition for Lawful Permanent Resident standing was accredited, she withdrew from the scholar visa program – not figuring out she needed to wait till a visa turned obtainable, in keeping with her legal professionals.
DHS informed NCS that Kordia was arrested “for immigration violations related to overstaying her expired student visa.” They additionally famous what they referred to as her involvement in “pro-Hamas protests at Columbia University” and claimed she was “found to be providing financial support to individuals living in nations hostile to the U.S.”
Her legal professionals say the “financial support” refers to funds Kordia made to relations within the West Bank and Gaza to assist pay their payments and rebuild their houses and companies after Israeli airstrikes.
An immigration choose has twice ordered Kordia launched on bond. But in each situations, DHS ordered an automated keep, protecting her detained. She’s presently within the midst of ongoing authorized instances each in immigration court docket and federal court docket, the place her legal professionals are arguing she was unconstitutionally focused due to her free speech and that her spiritual rights are being violated in detention.
Kordia’s cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, welcomed Mamdani’s help.
“Mayor Mamdani is absolutely right to call on President Trump to release Leqaa Kordia, the beloved daughter of an American citizen,” he stated in an announcement.
“For nearly a year, my cousin Leqaa has been locked away in ICE detention, robbed of precious birthdays, holidays, and irreplaceable moments with her family,” he went on.
“Leqaa is a young woman who belongs at home, safe, free, and surrounded by the people who love her. The time for delay is over. We urge President Trump to release Leqaa immediately and allow her to reclaim her freedom, her dignity, and her life.”