Amid recent town hall pushback and nationwide May Day events where immigrants and their rights have been major rallying cries, a number of immigrants targeted under the Trump administration’s nativist obsessions have won important victories that shouldn’t get lost in the daily flood of often devastating news. Blowback from angered and caring community members has played a critical role in several of these cases, highlighting the need to continue speaking out in defense of our immigrant neighbors, and each other.
VERMONT STUDENT FREED FROM ICE DETENTION
In Vermont, a university student who was detained after going to what he thought was his citizenship appointment was freed from ICE detention following an order from a federal judge.
Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old Columbia University student and green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank, had received a notice from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for what he believed was a final test in his journey to become a full American on paper. “Instead of conducting the interview, masked immigration officials in plainclothes detained Mahdawi when he arrived,” Truthout reported. While a federal judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking officials from moving him out of Vermont, he remained unjustly detained by the Trump administration.
In court filings demanding his release, attorneys argued that the Trump administration had been “seeking to deport Mahdawi because he helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia University’s campus in the early months of the Israel-Hamas war, in violation of his First Amendment rights,” CBS News reported. The court did the right thing and sided with Mahdawi, freeing him with some conditions after weeks in ICE detention. In his ruling, Judge Geoffrey Crawford issued a blistering critique of the administration’s actions. “This is not the first time that the nation has seen chilling action by the government intended to shut down debate,” he wrote.
Video captured Mahdawi’s emotional release from detention. In the clip, a large crowd is singing “We Shall Overcome” as Mahdawi emerges making peace signs with his fingers. “Judge Crawford, who ruled to release me against all of the heinous accusations, horrible attacks, chills of speech, First Amendment violations — he had made a very brave decision to let me out,” Mahdawi said. “And this is what justice is. And for anybody who’s doubting justice, this is a light of hope, a hope and faith in the justice system in America.”
“To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” he continued. The fight still continues on to free other students targeted by the administration over their views, including Columbia University Palestinian activist and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, who missed the recent birth of his first child because he’s in ICE detention.
The moment Mohsen Mahdawi was released from ICE custody in Vermont.
GUATEMALAN MOM IS REUNITED WITH NEWBORN AND RELEASED FROM CUSTODY
EFE reports that community pressure and pushback from state officials helped stop the imminent deportation of a Guatemalan woman who had just given birth to her infant at a Tucson hospital after spending two days wandering the harsh Arizona desert.
“Immediately after giving birth, the young woman learned she would be deported and was told she would have to decide between abandoning her newborn daughter or taking her with her,” El País reported. In a scene previewed in the Project 2025 agenda – which called for making hospitals, churches, and schools vulnerable to immigration raids – federal agents were posted outside the new mother’s room. “Border agents posted at Tucson maternity ward to quickly deport migrant mom,” read one headline from Arizona Daily Star. Soon after giving birth, Erika was separated from her infant, reports said.
Luis Campos, an attorney for the mother, said that “he had not been able to speak with Erika for days and was denied access to the hospital, which he said violated her Fifth Amendment right to counsel,” CNN reported. “There was no regard for due process,” Campos said. It appeared that the new mother was on the fast-track to be deported without a court hearing and the due process she deserved. But outside, the community was rallying.
Erika’s case “quickly garnered the attention of the local press and politicians,” El País continued, especially after Campos “reported that federal authorities were not allowing him to meet with her and that she was being ‘kidnapped.’” El País further reports that the state’s governor, Katie Hobbs, “contacted federal and local officials to inquire about her well-being and that of her baby.” Outraged community members also protested outside the hospital where Erika gave birth to her U.S. citizen child. “You know, we don’t incarcerate women two days after they’ve given birth,” said one demonstrator. “I mean, as a physician, I just know that that’s the wrong thing to do, and it’s just, it’s just wrong.”
The administration ultimately backed down and said the mom could have her day in court – and Campos credits the intense pushback from the community.
“They shifted their position, and they did it under pressure,” he said. “That’s what we wanted from the beginning. A simple opportunity to appear before an impartial judge, an immigration judge, where she’s allowed to provide evidence to support her claim, to testify, to provide witnesses to corroborate her version of events, and to have an attorney in that proceeding.” The family is now free and Erika plans to apply for asylum.
SACKETS HARBOR COMMUNITY UNITES TO SAY NOT IN OUR NAME
Last month, we wrote about the more than 1,000 demonstrators, some carrying U.S. flags and signs reading “TOM HOMAN TOOK OUR KIDS,” who took to the streets in the border czar’s small hometown of Sackets Harbor, New York – population 1,400 – to protest his vile and shocking arrest of a local mother and her three school-age children. The mom, a local dairy worker and contributor to her local community, was reportedly swept up as part of an investigation that didn’t even involve her. Other dairy farm workers were also swept up in the indiscriminate raid. Officials then cruelly detained her three children, the youngest of whom is in elementary school.
THIS!Over 1000 marched in protest in Sackets Harbor, NY on Sat after a mother & 3 children were snatched by ICE & sent to a detention center in Texas.The 3 children were dragged out of beds at 6am put into a van in handcuffs.1000 protesting in a town of only 1363 residents👏(🎥 7 News)
Numerous local, national, and independent media outlets had highlighted the swell of outrage over their detention, with local teachers, school officials, and community members taking to the streets to peacefully protest outside Homan’s Sackets Harbor home. While 90-year-old Jane Jenkins couldn’t participate in the march, she arranged to watch from the front of a friend’s home, Syracuse.com reported. “It was important for Jenkins to participate in the march to Homan’s home, even though her legs would not allow her to walk that half-mile distance, she said. Jenkins grew up in West Carthage when Homan — now a divisive figure in the nation’s immigration battle — was just a boy, she recalled.”
Homan apparently skipped town ahead of the protest, but that didn’t deter community members from gathering to stand up for this family. Just hours later, the Sackets Harbor Superintendent announced that the family would be returning home.
“Honan called it bullying; but protesters got the final word,” independent journalist Marisa Kabas wrote at The Handbasket. “The people of Sackets Harbor—and especially the school administrators and teachers—should serve as an example for us all that resistance can work.” In his piece at Bloomberg, Francis Wilkinson notes that while big law firms and schools have cowered to the administration, “a tiny school fought back and, improbably, won.” He notes that school officials and community members treated the children for what they were: one of their own. “They’re part of our family,” said teachers’ union president Jonna St. Croix. “This is about our kids.”
“The politics of cruelty have been getting a robust second wind,” Wilkinson continues. “What happened in Sackets Harbor this month was a kind of antidote to that — a demonstration of public courage and communal decency.” It’s a powerful message to the nation, and a needed reminder that if we stand up for each other, we can protect each other and be stronger as a whole.
