A United States immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student who led protests at Columbia University against the war in Gaza.

Judge Nina Froes said she had terminated the case due to a procedural misstep by government attorneys, according to the ruling which was made public on Tuesday.

The lawyers had failed to certify an official document they intended to use as evidence.

The Trump administration has the option to appeal the ruling.

Mahdawi says ruling an 'important step' towards 'justice'

"I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government's attempts to trample on due process," Mahdawi said in a statement released by his attorneys.

"This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice," he said.

Meanwhile, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, responded to the development, casting Mahdawi as a leader of "pro-terrorist riots" whose visa should be revoked.

"No activist judge, not this one or any other, is going to stop us from doing that," she said in an emailed statement to the AP news agency.

The ruling marks the latest setback for the US government's efforts to expel pro-Palestinian campus activists or others who have criticized Israel's response to the terrorist attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023. 

Last month, a different immigration judge blocked the deportation of a Tuft University graduate student, Rümeysa Öztürk, over an op-ed criticizing the school's response to the war in Gaza.

Can Mahdawi be deported?

Born in a refugee camp in Israeli-occupied West Bank, Mahdawi has been a legal permanent resident of the United States for the last decade. 

He was arrested by immigration officers in April 2025 during his citizenship interview but released two weeks later by a federal judge.

The Trump administration has since been trying to deport him citing a memo by Secretary of State Marco Rubio who argues that noncitizens can be deported from the US if their presence undermines US foreign interests.

Mahdawi is also fighting a separate case in the federal district court, which he filed, arguing he was unlawfully detained.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru