BREAKING: MOHSEN MAHDAWI WALKS FREE.

Let’s all take a moment to breathe — a long, delicious, lung-filling inhale of victory. Because today, we’ve got something rare: good fucking news.

Mohsen Mahdawi — Palestinian student, activist, and future Columbia grad — just walked out of ICE custody and flipped the bird on his way out. Not literally, but spiritually. And more importantly, he did it with words that should be etched in granite on the front steps of the goddamn White House:

“To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

That’s right. A federal judge in Vermont told the Trump regime’s deportation thugs to go back to hell — and take their fascist fever dreams with them. No wiggle room. No delay. Just a legal curb-stomp of the latest authoritarian stunt.

TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY STRATEGY: DEPORT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES

Mohsen wasn’t caught sneaking across a border. He wasn’t hiding weapons, laundering money, or running fake passports. He was doing what we allegedly encourage immigrants to do — showing up, following the rules, attending his damn naturalization interview. And for that, Trump’s bootlickers in ICE slapped him in cuffs and hauled him off like he was carrying a biohazard in his backpack instead of a diploma.

Their excuse? Some crusty Cold War clause claiming his presence in the country would harm “U.S. foreign policy interests.” In other words, he criticized genocide, so they called him dangerous. That’s the whole case. He opened his mouth about Gaza and the federal government unzipped its pants and pissed on the Constitution — again.

According to the Trump administration’s own court filing, they determined that Mahdawi’s “presence and activities in the United States would have serious adverse foreign-policy consequences.” That’s not national security — that’s a temper tantrum dressed up in federal stationery.

JUDGE CRAWFORD: BRINGING A FLAMETHROWER TO A BUREAUCRATIC KNIFE FIGHT

U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford wasn’t having it. In a ruling that deserves to be read aloud on courthouse steps across the country, he torched ICE’s argument to ash. He didn’t just order Mahdawi’s release — he cracked open the history books and reminded us what happens when governments weaponize fear to silence dissent.

“Legal residents — not charged with crimes or misconduct — are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day,” Crawford wrote. “Our nation has seen times like this before, especially during the Red Scare and Palmer Raids of 1919/1920.”

This case, he made clear, belonged on that same shelf of shame. Crawford looked ICE in the eye and said: this isn’t national security — it’s political cowardice. This is not immigration enforcement — it’s state-sponsored censorship. And this man, this student, this legal permanent resident — has broken no laws, posed no threat, and spoken only truth. So unless your policy interest is to piss all over the First Amendment, get the hell out of his way.

FROM ICE CELL TO COMMENCEMENT: MOHSEN WALKS TALL

Mahdawi’s not out of the woods. His naturalization is still stalled, his legal case still active, his travel limited to Vermont and necessary trips to New York. But that didn’t stop him from standing on the courthouse steps, straight-backed and unbroken, and declaring exactly what this moment demanded:

“I see freedom and it is very very soon.”

It wasn’t a sound bite. It was prophetic. It was defiance dipped in honey and served with fire. And it landed like a Molotov in the middle of Trump’s paranoia.

This man — born in a refugee camp, now walking toward a master’s degree at Columbia — is the thing they fear the most. Not because he’s dangerous, but because he’s undeniable. Because they tried to erase him and failed. Because he kept showing up, kept organizing, kept speaking — and now, he’s back.

ICE AND TRUMP LOST. REMEMBER THAT.

They want you to think no one can win. That the machine always grinds you down. That resistance is futile and hope is for suckers. But not today. Today, the machine choked. ICE took the shot — and missed. Trump sent the order — and got rebuked. The state came to crush a student with the full weight of the American empire, and it lost to a man with nothing but courage and truth on his side.

Let this be a warning to the orange menace: not everyone is scared of you. Not everyone will kneel. Not everyone believes your flag-draped fascism is inevitable. Some of us still remember what freedom actually means — and some of us are willing to fight for it.

Today, Mohsen Mahdawi fought.
And today, he fucking won.

---

Like what you read? We don’t do neutrality — we do fire. Subscribe to Closer to the Edge to keep the resistance sharp, loud, and dangerously well-informed.