A US appeals court overturned on July 21, 2026 a lower court ruling that had ordered the release of Columbia University activist Mohsen Mahdawi from immigration detention. The decision reignites a legal fight that touches on free speech, immigration enforcement, and the government's approach to campus protests.

The decision came from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (docket 25-2162). It reverses a 2025 ruling by US District Judge Geoffrey Crawford, who had ordered Mahdawi released. Crawford found that Mahdawi "enjoyed the same free speech rights as US citizens" and said the Trump administration caused "great harm" to someone who had committed no crime (Al Jazeera). The appeals court did not rule on whether Crawford was right about free speech. Instead, it focused on a different question: whether Crawford's court was even the right court to hear the case. Habeas corpus is a legal tool that lets someone challenge their detention in federal court. The appeals court said this particular dispute may belong in the immigration court system instead (Third Circuit opinion).

Mahdawi is a lawful permanent resident, meaning he has legal permission to live and work in the United States, though he is not a citizen. He was born in the occupied West Bank and describes himself as a "stateless Palestinian refugee." He was arrested in April 2025 after attending what he believed was an interview about his US citizenship application. He was detained for two weeks and charged with no crime (Al Jazeera).

The legal path since his arrest has been turbulent. In February 2026, an immigration judge named Nina Froes blocked the Trump administration's attempt to deport Mahdawi, ruling that the government "failed to meet its burden of proof" — meaning it did not provide enough evidence to justify deportation. Froes was then fired by the Trump administration. In May 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals, a body that reviews immigration court decisions, reinstated deportation proceedings against Mahdawi. That set the stage for the appeals court's July ruling (Al Jazeera).

The administration's argument relies on a specific federal law. It says Secretary of State Marco Rubio has the authority to seek the deportation of non-citizens whose presence in the US could cause "adverse foreign policy consequences." This provision has become a key tool in the administration's effort to remove non-citizen activists tied to campus protest movements (Al Jazeera).

By overturning Crawford's order, the appeals court narrowed the path through which Mahdawi's lawyers had secured his release. The case now goes back into the immigration court system.

Several threads converge here in ways that matter for anyone following immigration enforcement under this administration. The firing of Judge Froes, the reversal by the Board of Immigration Appeals, and now the appeals court's ruling form a sequence where each institutional layer has been either bypassed or overridden. The removal of an immigration judge who ruled against the government while a case was still ongoing is especially notable; it raises questions about whether immigration judges can make independent decisions without being removed.

The law the government is using, which allows deportation based on a Secretary of State's judgment about foreign policy consequences, has historically been a narrow tool applied to specific situations. Using it against campus activists who are lawful permanent residents, rather than people on temporary visas, pushes it into new and less tested legal territory. The question of whether free speech protections extend to lawful permanent residents as fully as they do to citizens, as Judge Crawford argued, remains contested. The appeals court did not address that constitutional question directly — it reversed the release order on jurisdictional grounds instead.

For Mahdawi personally, the consequence is renewed exposure to deportation in an immigration court system that has already produced one ruling against him. His status as a stateless Palestinian refugee adds another complication: if deportation is ordered, it is unclear which country would accept him, since statelessness means no government is obligated to take him in.

The broader context here is an administration that has used immigration law and foreign policy authority together to pursue the removal of non-citizen activists. This approach tests the limits of two ideas that have long existed in tension: the government's broad power over immigration, and the constitutional protections that may limit that power. The appeals court's ruling, by focusing on which court should hear the case rather than on the free speech question itself, leaves the core constitutional issue unresolved. Whether the Supreme Court will eventually take up the free speech claims, or whether the case will play out entirely within the immigration court system, depends on the next legal moves by Mahdawi's lawyers and the government.