Hojun Choi
Inside the packed, muggy chapel of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier on Aug. 9, Mohsen Mahdawi says he felt nothing but love from the Vermonters who came to show their support for him.
“This is the Vermont I came to know over the past 12 years, and when you see people coming in these numbers, showing their love, you can’t help but feel more rooted,” Mahdawi told The Bridge.
Mahdawi, who first moved to Vermont in 2014, is among the Columbia University students the federal government targeted for deportation after they publicly voiced and led demonstrations in support of Palestine. On Aug. 9, hundreds of people from different parts of Vermont came to a fundraiser in support of Mahdawi, the featured guest speaker for the event.
Mahdawi, who had a green card, was detained in April 2025 by federal immigration agents in Colchester, where he showed up for what he thought would be a screening for citizenship.
A federal judge in Vermont halted the deportation order, but the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York in July reversed the ruling — again putting him at risk of being deported. He has been in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and is getting ready to petition the most recent court ruling.
“They want me to shut down, stay silent, and not say any words,” Mahdawi said. “My reaction to it is, I’m going to speak my truth, and I’m going to speak it from a place of love and peace.”
Despite his challenges and feeling like a political prisoner, Mahdawi told The Bridge he remains hopeful.
“It’s more than a little bit of hope, there is so much hope. This is just a small example of what is happening in this country,” Mahdawi said when asked about the large number of supporters at the Aug. 9 fundraiser.
Laura Fair, a former professor of African history at Columbia University, said she left her job in response to the school’s treatment of students who organized demonstrations on campus to protest the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians by the Israeli military in response to the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The United Nations in September 2025 reported that Israel’s security forced had committed genocide in Gaza.
“None of these students did anything wrong. This was a standard part of campus life, to protest, exercise your right to free speech, to speak out against genocide or any other form of injustice,” Fair said. “It’s a tenet of American democracy, and something universities should promote.”
Fair said she moved to Ferrisburgh, Vermont after her time teaching. When she heard that a student from Columbia University had been arrested in Colchester, she immediately wanted to show her support for Mahdawi.
“I really feel like he could have been any one of my students. Many of them were involved in the encampments,” Fair said.
The Social Action Committee of the Beth Jacob Synagogue was the main organizer of the event, with the Unitarian Church of Montpelier providing the space.
Alice Silverman, who serves on the social action committee, said the fundraiser spoke to “core Jewish values.”
“We must support the most vulnerable among us,” Silverman said, and called for “solidarity and unity.”
Wafic Faour, a longtime Palestinian activist based in Vermont, echoed Mahdawi’s message of hope.
The fundraiser was a way to not only support Mahdawi, but to also highlight the importance of protecting freedom of speech, Faour said
Faour said he thinks there has been growing support for Palestinians in the U.S. over the past three years.
“We are working to make Palestine a local issue, a Vermont issue,” Faour said. “We are changing opinions at the political level and on the streets.”
In addition to Mahdawi, speakers at the event included the Rev. Joan Javier-Duval, minister of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier; Rabbi Shaul Magid, a professor at Harvard University Divinity School; and Rabbi Grace Oedel of the L’Chaim Collective.
Money raised from the event will go toward a GoFundMe campaign to support Mahdawi. As of Aug. 11, the GoFundMe page had raised a little more than $138,000 of its $250,000 goal.
Eric Levi Jacobson, director of the Vermont Center for Social Research; Mark Hage, director of benefit programs at Vermont-National Education Association; and David Cole, who is on Mahdawi’s legal team, also spoke.
“We’re standing up for him,” Jacobson said. “He’s our neighbor; that’s what we do.”
The crowd of more than 230 people stood and applauded for more than 30 seconds as Mahdawi took the stage.
“They say home is where you feel safe and loved and those who surround you there are your people,” Mahdawi said. “And you are my people,” he told attendees of the event, some of whom had to wait to enter because of the church’s building capacity.
Mahdawi shared the story of overcoming the trauma he experienced as a child growing up under Israeli occupation. He urged his supporters at the event to continue standing up for injustice both close to and far from home.
“The delusion and illusion that we are all disconnected, that the pain of Palestinians is separate from the pain in our hearts, is just a lie,” Mahdawi said.
