Mohsen Mahdawi

Mohsen Mahdawi is a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Raised in Al Far’a Refugee Camp in the occupied West Bank, he is an outspoken advocate for the human rights of Palestinians. As an undergraduate at Columbia University, where he studied philosophy as a PALS Scholar, he co-founded and co-led the Palestinian Student Union and led the Columbia Buddhist Association. In 2025, he was detained by federal agents during his naturalization interview as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing campaign to arrest, imprison, and deport noncitizens who engage in pro-Palestinian advocacy—a campaign that Judge William Young later described as a “truly scandalous” effort to suppress political speech protected by the First Amendment. Mahdawi is a Beerman Foundation Fellow and a Walter Wink Fellow with the Fellowship of Reconciliation.