People take part in a protest to demand the release of Palestinian activist and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi; Photo credit: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested by immigration authorities Monday, was taking the last step in the process for him to become a U.S. citizen, his attorney told ABC News.
Mahdawi, a permanent United States resident, was arrested during his naturalization interview and detained in Vermont, Luna Droubi, one of his attorneys, told ABC News.
“It was the last stage, the last hurdle for him,” Droubi said. “What he wanted was to become a US citizen, and attended this naturalization with that hope.”
U.S. District Judge William Sessions subsequently granted Mahdawi’s attorneys a temporary restraining order barring the government from moving Mahdawi out of District of Vermont “pending further order” from the court.
Mahdawi, who founded a university organization called Palestinian Student Union with Mahmoud Khalil, was an activist in student protests on Columbia’s campus until March 2024, according to a habeas petition obtained by ABC News.
“He advocated on behalf of his people,” Droubi said. “He had moments where he spoke out and that is the extent of his participation.”
Droubi said Mahdawi was detained “solely on his first amendment rights.”
“He’s being detained based solely on his first amendment rights — his speech,” Droubi told ABC News. “That’s a violation of the law, that’s a violation of the Constitution, and he should be released immediately as a result of the detention.”
Droubi said “there was a smear campaign against Mahdawi” on social media.
“They were all non-governmental actors,” Droubi said. “So the reality is the government has not provided any evidence to justify his detention by government agents.”
Droubi said she has requested that Mahdawi be released on bail.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement referred ABC News to the State Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a court filing in Khalil’s immigration case, DHS submitted a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserting that the law gives him the power to determine a person is deportable even if their actions are “otherwise lawful.”
Rubio wrote that Khalil should be deported because of his alleged role in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama in a statement late Monday praised Harvard University for rejecting President Donald Trump’s demands as the university faces a funding freeze for alleged inaction on antisemitism.
“Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions — rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect,” Obama posted on X. “Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.”
Obama’s remark came after Harvard University said on Monday it was refusing to comply with a series of demands from the Trump administration. On Monday evening, the administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a multibillion-dollar freeze on funding to the university. (Harvard University has said it is committed to fighting antisemitism and to making changes to create a welcoming environment.)
Obama, an alumnus of Harvard Law School, did not address the funding freeze.
In recent remarks at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, Obama had said he was concerned about the White House’s moves against universities.
“I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” Obama said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
He had also called on universities not to give into what he framed as intimidation.
“If you are a university, you may have to figure out, are we in fact doing things right? Have we in fact violated our own values, our own code, violated the law in some fashion? If not and you’re just being intimidated, well, you should be able to say, that’s why we got this big endowment,” Obama said, according to the transcript.
“We’ll stand up for what we believe in and we’ll pay our researchers for a while out of that endowment and we’ll give up the extra wing or the fancy gymnasium — that we can delay that for a couple of years because academic freedom might be a little more important,” he added.
Trump, on Tuesday morning, called for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status after the university said it would not comply with the Trump administration’s series of demands.
“Perhaps Harvard should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity if it keeps pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness?’ Remember, Tax Exempt Status is totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST!” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
Harvard University is exempt from federal income tax because it is an educational institution. It is also exempt from Massachusetts state income tax, according to the university.
Asked during a press briefing on Tuesday how serious Trump is about his call for Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president has been “quite clear they must follow federal law.”
“He also wants to see Harvard apologize, and Harvard should apologize for the egregious antisemitism that took place on their college campus against Jewish American students,” she said.
Leavitt also claimed the university has not taken the administration’s demands seriously in response to a question on the funding freeze.
“All the president is asking don’t break federal law, and then you can have your federal funding,” she said.
ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh, Peter Charalambous, Selina Wang and Arthur Jones II contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — After a devastating missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy appeared to have killed dozens of civilians gathered for Palm Sunday celebrations, President Donald Trump downplayed the incident as a “mistake” — and lashed out with recriminations.
He continued to insist that the broader war was started by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that President Joe Biden failed to stop it — rather than blaming Russian President for causing the conflict.
“The mistake was letting the war happen,” Trump said, when asked to clarify his initial comments at the White House on Monday.
“I’m not saying anybody’s an angel, but I will tell you, I went four years, and it wasn’t even a question,” he continued, asserting again that Putin wouldn’t have dared invade Ukraine when he was in power.
“It was the apple of his eye, but there was no way that he would have done it,” Trump said of Putin.
But as the months of Trump’s second term continue to pass, the president’s repeated claims that he has significant sway over Putin seem to be falling flat. His administration has so far failed to draw any meaningful concessions from the Kremlin as part of its efforts to end the war.
Trump, who has been faulted for failing to put any real pressure on Russia as he angles for a peace deal, again attacked Zelenskyy more harshly than Putin.
“You don’t start a war with someone 20 times your size and then hope people give you some missiles,” he said of the Ukrainian leader.
“You have millions of people dead, millions of people dead because of three people,” Trump went on. “Let’s say Putin number one. But let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky. And all I can do is try and stop it.”
Zelenskyy responded to the comments during a Monday evening address, saying “Russian state propagandists are preparing their audience for the idea that diplomacy will not bring any results.”
“If there is not strong enough pressure on Russia, they will keep doing what they are used to — they will keep waging war,” he said.
While Trump did not seize on the Sumy attack as an opening to ramp up diplomatic pressure on Russia, other corners of his administration and some of his political allies were more outspoken in the aftermath.
Retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Ukraine, said the strike “crosses any line of decency.”
“There are scores of civilian dead and wounded. As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong,” he said in a post on X.
In his own social media post, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called the attack “barbaric” and said it “seems to be Putin’s answer to efforts to achieve a ceasefire and peace.”
Graham also referenced proposed legislation aimed at imposing more economic penalties against Russia, saying it would be necessary “unless there is dramatic change soon.”
The attack on Sumy comes just ten days after a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city Kryvyi Rih killed 20 people, including nine children.
It also comes at an inauspicious time for the Trump administration, which deployed its top negotiator, U.S. Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff, to hold his third round of face-to-face talks with Putin approximately 48 hours before the strike.
Video emerged of a smiling Witkoff holding his hand over his heart as he greeted Putin. The Kremlin praised the meeting as “extremely useful,” but has so far shown little interest in moving toward a broader settlement in Ukraine.
Last month, the White House announced that both Ukraine and Russia agreed to temporary limited ceasefires covering strikes on energy infrastructure and naval targets in the Black Sea.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of violating the energy deal several times however, and Russia has balked at fully committing to the Black Sea deal — saying the U.S. and its allies must meet a long list of conditions before it would.
While the Kremlin’s recent attacks on civilians in Ukraine might not push Trump to turn up the heat on Russia, there are signs that his frustration over the slow clip of the diplomatic process underway might be building.
“Russia has to get moving,” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social site on Friday ahead of Witkoff and Putin’s meeting.
At the White House on Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked whether Russia had agreed anything with Witkoff.
“What I can tell you is that they were — a productive conversation was had,” she said. “He believes that Russia wants to end this war, and the president believes that as well. There is incentive for Russia to end this war. And perhaps that could be economic partnerships with the United States. But we need to see a ceasefire first. And the president and the presidential envoy, Witkoff, made that very clear to the Russians.”
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A day after a highly anticipated Oval Office meeting in which the president of El Salvador said he would not return a wrongly deported Maryland man being held in his country, the federal judge who ordered his return will hear from Trump administration attorneys at a court hearing Tuesday afternoon.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is entering his second month in an El Salvador mega-prison after he was deported there on March 15 despite being issued a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country.
Trump administration officials say Abrego Garcia, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but to date they have provided little evidence of that assertion in court.
He is being held in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, along with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under an arrangement in which the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an Oval Office meeting Monday with President Trump and the visiting El Salvador president, said that Abrego Garcia’s return is “up to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … wanted to return him, we would facilitate it,” she said.
Asked by reporters about Abrego Garcia, President Bukele responded, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
In a motion filed Tuesday in advance of the hearing, lawyers for Abrego Garcia argued that the Trump administration has not taken any steps to comply with the orders to facilitate his release.
“There is no evidence that anyone has requested the release of Abrego Garcia,” they wrote in the filing.
The attorneys also took issue with the government’s interpretation of the word “facilitate,” which the administration has argued in court filings is limited to removing any domestic obstacles that would impede the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Interpreting the term in that manner, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys argued, would render “null” the Supreme Court’s order that the government facilitate his release.
“To give any meaning to the Supreme Court’s order, the Government should at least be required to request the release of Abrego Garcia. To date, the Government has not done so,” they wrote in their motion.
In its daily update on the status of the case, ordered last week by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, Justice Department attorneys said Monday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security does not “have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
The Supreme Court last week unanimously ruled that Judge Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the high court added.
In an interview Monday evening with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, an attorney for Abrego Garcia said he hopes Tuesday’s hearing “lights a fire under the government to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.”
“What we’re asking [of Trump] is exactly what the Supreme Court told him,” attorney Benjamin Osorio said. “I personally have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases at circuit court levels or at the Supreme Court, and ICE facilitated their return.”
“So we’re not asking anybody to do anything illegal,” Osorio said. “We’re asking them to follow the law.”
“It feels a little bit like the Spider-Man meme where everybody’s pointing at everybody else,” Osorio said of Bukele’s claim that he doesn’t have the power to return Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean, we are renting space from the Salvadorans. We are paying them to house these individuals, so we could stop payment and allow them to be returned to us.”
Asked if he is confident that Abrego Garcia will be returned, Osorio said he was concerned but hopeful.
“I’m worried about the rule of law, I’m worried about our Constitution, I’m worrying about due process,” he said. “So at this point, I am optimistic to see what happens in the federal court hearing.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Joe Biden will deliver one of his first public speeches since leaving office 85 days ago, expected to speak about safeguarding Social Security amid Republicans’ current threats to it at a conference in Chicago on Tuesday.
Biden re-enters the public stage after keeping a relatively low profile in the time since he left office. After he gives the keynote speech at the gathering of the Advocates, Counselors and Representatives for the Disabled, Biden will have been seen now a handful of times in recent weeks — emerging even while President Donald Trump continuously blames his predecessor for a range of issues.
Trump has blamed Biden for everything from rising egg prices (during his address to a joint session of Congress in March, claiming “Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control”) to the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. Trump notably called Biden a “stupid president” during his contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in March and refers to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “Biden’s war.”
ACRD is billing Biden’s remarks as the first of his post-presidency, though the 82-year-old is known to have given remarks at two recent events, though less publicized. He spoke at an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers event in Washington last week when he became an honorary member of the union. In March, he spoke at the Model United Nations conference in New York.
“We are deeply honored President Biden is making his first public appearance at ACRD’s sold-out conference,” said Rachel Buck, ACRD Executive Director. “As bipartisan leaders have long agreed, Americans who retire after paying into Social Security their whole lives deserve the vital support and caring services they receive. As a result, we are thrilled the President will be joining us to discuss how we can work together for a stable and successful future for Social Security.”
ACRD is convening its conference to bring together policymakers and advocates in a bipartisan effort to support Social Security, the organization claims, especially as operational and staffing issues caused by cuts by the current administration have impacted the older and disabled Americans who use Social Security income and insurance.
Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have slashed 7,000 Social Security Administration jobs over the past few months in their efforts to cut down the federal workforce as part of the new Department of Government Efficiency, moves that Democrats have vigorously rallied against.
Biden’s speech comes as Democratic congressional leaders are billing Tuesday as a ‘Day of Action’ focused on Social Security.
“Across the country, Democrats are leading the fight to oppose the Republican plan to gut Social Security. Our Save Social Security Day of Action will mobilize Americans from every corner of the United States to push back on Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE’s cuts to Social Security,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement.
“Republicans want to slash this critical lifeline by making it harder for seniors and people with disabilities to access their earned benefits. Shutting down local offices, firing large numbers of experienced constituent service workers and cutting phone services makes it harder for people to get their checks. Republicans are trying to kill Social Security from the inside — it is a cut by another name — and we won’t let that happen.”
Biden will be joined in Chicago by former Maryland Gov. and Social Security Administrator Martin O’Malley and the organization’s co-chairs — former Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow and former Republican Sen. Roy Blunt.
(FRISCO, Texas) — The 17-year-old student charged with murder in the stabbing of another student at a Texas high school track meet has been released from jail after his $1 million bond was reduced, online records show.
Karmelo Anthony, a student at Frisco Centennial High School, was detained following the deadly stabbing, which occurred at a Frisco Independent School District stadium on April 2 during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.
Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.
Anthony was initially held on $1 million bond. During a hearing on Monday, a Collin County judge set his bond at $250,000, online court records show. He was released from the Collin County Jail that day, online jail records show.
As part of his bond conditions, he has been ordered to be on house arrest, be supervised by a parent or designated adult at all times and have no contact with Metcalf’s family, according to court records. He also needs prior court approval to leave the house and must check in with the court bailiff weekly until the case is indicted into a different court, the court records show.
Judge Angela Tucker said she considered several factors in setting the new bond amount, including Anthony’s age, lack of past criminal history and close ties to the community, Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA reported.
Members of both teens’ families attended the hearing, according to WFAA.
Anthony is newly represented by Dallas defense attorney Mike Howard, who asked for $150,000 bond, according to WFAA. The prosecution argued the Anthony family was able to pay the $1 million bond through funds raised through the platform GiveSendGo, according to WFAA. The fundraiser had more than $416,000 in donations as of Monday afternoon. Anthony’s father told the court the family doesn’t have access to those funds yet, WFAA reported.
ABC News reached out to Howard for comment but has not received a response.
The Dallas-based social justice organization Next Generation Action Network, which is advocating for Anthony, said in a statement on X that the reduced bond “gives Karmelo and his family a much-needed window of relief and a chance to prepare for the road ahead.”
The organization said it was working with the Anthony family to process the bond.
The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers at approximately 10 a.m. on April 2, according to the arrest report.
Responding officers said they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.
The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.
Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, according to a witness, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.
Anthony allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — A 15-year-old has been arrested and charged for fatally shooting a Lyft driver in North Carolina, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
The teen was arrested on Friday in connection to the death of Carlos Leiva, 25, a Lyft driver who was fatally shot last year in Charlotte, police said in a statement on Monday.
On Oct. 23, officers responding to the scene found a man — later identified as Leiva — with an “apparent gunshot wound,” police said.
The Charlotte Fire Department and emergency medical services responded to the area, but Leiva was pronounced dead on the scene.
The teen was charged with murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle and conveyance, police said. The circumstances surrounding the shooting have not been released.
After their arrest, the teen was interviewed by detectives and then transferred to the custody of the Stonewall Jackson Juvenile Development Center, police said.
The name of the teenager was not released by police due to their age.
Leiva’s brother, Daniel Davila, told Charlotte ABC affiliate WSOC the suspect’s arrest gives the family “a little bit more peace now.”
Officials said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A day after a highly anticipated Oval Office meeting in which the president of El Salvador said he would not return a wrongly deported Maryland man being held in his country, the federal judge who ordered his return will hear from Trump administration attorneys at a court hearing Tuesday afternoon.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is entering his second month in an El Salvador mega-prison after he was deported there on March 15 despite being issued a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country.
Trump administration officials say Abrego Garcia, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but to date they have provided little evidence of that assertion in court.
He is being held in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison, along with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under an arrangement in which the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an Oval Office meeting Monday with President Trump and the visiting El Salvador president, said that Abrego Garcia’s return is “up to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … wanted to return him, we would facilitate it,” she said.
Asked by reporters about Abrego Garcia, President Bukele responded, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
In its daily update on the status of the case, ordered last week by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, Justice Department attorneys said Monday afternoon that the Department of Homeland Security does not “have the authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
The administration’s stance comes after the Supreme Court last week unanimously ruled that Judge Xinis “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the high court added.
In an interview Monday evening with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, an attorney for Abrego Garcia said he hopes Tuesday’s hearing “lights a fire under the government to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.”
“What we’re asking [of Trump] is exactly what the Supreme Court told him,” attorney Benjamin Osorio said. “I personally have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases at circuit court levels or at the Supreme Court, and ICE facilitated their return.”
“So we’re not asking anybody to do anything illegal,” Osorio said. “We’re asking them to follow the law.”
“It feels a little bit like the Spider-Man meme where everybody’s pointing at everybody else,” Osorio said of Bukele’s claim that he doesn’t have the power to return Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean, we are renting space from the Salvadorans. We are paying them to house these individuals, so we could stop payment and allow them to be returned to us.”
Asked if he is confident that Abrego Garcia will be returned, Osorio said he was concerned but hopeful.
“I’m worried about the rule of law, I’m worried about our Constitution, I’m worrying about due process,” he said. “So at this point, I am optimistic to see what happens in the federal court hearing.”
Raquel Natalicchio/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
(AUSTIN, Texas) — The measles outbreak in western Texas continues to grow, with 561 confirmed cases, according to new data published Tuesday.
This is an increase of 20 new cases over the last five days.
Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Four of the cases are among residents who have been vaccinated with one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. Seven cases are among those vaccinated with two doses.
At least 58 people with measles have been hospitalized so far.
Children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases, followed by children ages 4 and under.
Gaines County, which borders New Mexico, remains the epicenter of the outbreak, with 364 cases confirmed so far, DSHS data shows.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
