Overview
- The Board of Immigration Appeals reinstated the case on Wednesday, according to a court filing by Mohsen Mahdawi’s lawyers.
- The matter now returns to immigration court before a new judge after Nina Froes, who threw out the case in February, was fired last month.
- Froes had ruled the government failed to authenticate a memo said to be signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that labeled Mahdawi a foreign policy threat.
- The ACLU says a federal lawsuit contesting Mahdawi’s April 2025 arrest at a citizenship interview prevents the government from deporting him for now.
- Government lawyers had cited a 2015 FBI inquiry and an allegation about violent statements, yet the FBI closed the inquiry and no charges followed as the case becomes a test of the Trump administration’s clampdown on pro‑Palestinian activism on campuses.