In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mohsen Mahdawi – a Columbia student who was infamously detained by ICE last year at his citizenship interview – describes to Mehdi Hasan the “chilling effect” taking place on campus, after the arrest of him and other pro-Palestine students, and the university’s $221 million settlement with the Trump administration. Mahdawi discussed the outcomes of the Administration's assault on free speech, telling Mehdi that some of his fellow students are now afraid to “write academic papers that reflect their own beliefs and opinions” because they fear Columbia may share that information with the Trump administration. Mahdawi said that he remains optimistic now that Palestine has become ‘the issue of the 21st century,’ and that people are ‘refusing to surrender to this tactic of fear, intimidation, and exhaustion.’
