Trump admin gets sharp rebuke as judge outright terminates high-profile deportation case
An immigration judge has axed the Trump administration's deportation case against Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, marking another major legal blow to the government's crackdown on college campus demonstrators in recent weeks.
The judge terminated the case after determining the government failed to properly authenticate a crucial document, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Mahdawi's legal team. The 35-year-old Palestinian green-card holder faced charges of posing a "foreign-policy threat" to the U.S. following his detention in April at a citizenship interview in Vermont.
"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.
Mahdawi arrived in the U.S. in 2014 after growing up in a West Bank refugee camp. He organized demonstrations at the Ivy League institution during the administration's spring campus crackdown targeting what it characterized as antisemitism and extremist ideology. He was among several high-profile activists detained and accused of threatening national security through their activism.
Though the dismissal prevents immediate deportation, the administration retains options to appeal or refile charges. Mahdawi's case follows the recent dismissal of charges against Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk, who spent weeks in detention after police arrested her on a street, claiming she posed a deportation risk for co-writing a pro-Palestinian opinion piece.
CNBC blindsided as Musk abruptly bails on live interview while SpaceX shares freefall
CNBC was left holding the bag on Friday when Elon Musk abruptly backed out of a live, heavily promoted interview moments before it was set to air, as SpaceX shares slid below the price of their first public trade.
The network had spent the morning teasing the sit-down, billed as Musk's first television interview since SpaceX went public. Anchor Scott Wapner threw to correspondent Julia Boorstin at the Allen & Co. gathering in Sun Valley, Idaho, to explain why it suddenly wasn't happening.
"We've been promoting this exclusive interview that Elon Musk was expected to give to our Julia Boorstin, which is now apparently no longer happening. I want to bring in Julia Boorstin, who's been in Sun Valley. Julia, do you want to explain to us exactly what happened here, as this was imminent?" said Wapner.
"Yeah, we were expecting to start an interview with Elon Musk right now at noon Eastern. We just got word that he has to postpone," Boorstin replied, adding that the network hopes Musk will offer a new time.
Boorstin noted that SpaceX shares were trading below the level of their very first trade and well off the highs the stock reached after its record June debut. As she spoke, shares were off nearly 3% at around $148. SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 and opened at $150 on June 12 before surging in its opening sessions, then slipping back below that opening level as it was pulled into major market indexes.
She said there was plenty she had hoped to raise, including Grok 4.5, the AI model Musk's company launched Wednesday, and how SpaceX is holding down customer prices as component costs climb. That thread would have followed a CNBC interview a day earlier with OpenAI's Sam Altman about efficiency gains in his company's newest models.
Wapner called it an unfortunate development and said the network would report any update.
