A Palestinian student was arrested in an interview with U.S. citizenship, which helped launch an initiative to assist other immigrants deported in Vermont Thursday a week after a federal judge released him.

Mohsen Mahdawi, 34, led protests against Israel's war in Gaza in Columbia University, spent 16 days in state prison before the judge ordered him to be released on April 30. The Trump administration said Mahadawi should be deported because his activism threatened his foreign policy objectives, but the judge ruled that he made a "substantial claim" that the administration arrested him and stifled speeches he disagreed.

Immigration authorities have detained college students across the country since the first day of the Trump administration. Many of them participated in campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war, which killed more than 52,000 Palestinians. Mahdawi was one of the first people to win freedom after challenged arrest.

"Justice is inevitable. We won't be afraid of anyone because our struggle is a struggle for love, a struggle for democracy, a struggle for humanity," Mahadawi told supporters outside the court last week.

He will join Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieiak, State Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale and community advocates for state legislators to announce Vermont Immigration Law Defense Fund. The organization also includes lawyers and philanthropists, who said the goal is to improve opportunities for immigration legal advice and to build long-term infrastructure within the judicial system because it is related to immigration laws.

Members of the Vermont Congressional delegation, like state politicians, spoke on behalf of Mahdawi. The House and Senate of Vermont passed resolutions condemning his detention and advocating for the release and due process rights.

Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott said there was no reason for the way he was arrested in the immigration office in Colchester.

"The country's law enforcement officers should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks," the governor said the next day. "The power of the federal administration is huge, but not infinite, nor absolute."

Mahdawi is a legal permanent resident born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. In Colombia, he organized campus protests and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with another Palestinian resident, Mahmoud Khalil, who is a resident of us and our graduates.

Mahdawi's release was challenged by the government, allowing him to graduate from Columbia, New York later this month and attend his hometown of Vermont.