Montpelier, Vermont - Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University student recently released from prison amid the Trump administration's anti-Palestine crackdown, has helped to launch a new initiative to assist other immigrants facing deportation.

Mahdawi joined Vermont State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale, and community activists at the statehouse on Thursday to announce the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

The initiative aims to raise $1 million to expand access to legal counsel for immigrants in Vermont.

"This fund helps to ensure that the promise of justice isn't reserved only for those who can afford it," Pieciak told a news conference.

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The launch comes amid Donald Trump's intensified mass deportation campaign as well as his extreme efforts to suppress Palestine solidarity activism on university campuses.

"The message is: don't give up on justice," Mahdawi said. "Democracy is justice, and justice, an extension of it, is democracy."

"We start now by supporting the immigrants and tomorrow by starting prison reform, and the day after by seeing Rümeysa [Öztürk] and other students among us, and the day after by ending genocide and starting a peace process: Jews, Muslims, Palestinians, Israelis, Christians, Buddhists, all people. We want to live in peace," he added to enthusiastic applause.

Mahdawi's appearance came after US agents detained him as he attended an interview to become an American citizen. Born in a refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank, he has resided in the US since 2014 and holds a green card.

The case sparked mass public outrage amid the Trump administration's escalated efforts to detain and deport non-citizen students taking a stand for Palestinian human rights.

The Trump administration claimed Mahdawi posed a threat to the US' foreign policy interests as it has steadfastly backed the Israeli regime.

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In a major victory, a federal judge in Vermont ordered Mahdawi's release on bail last Wednesday.

"Mahdawi has presented sufficient evidence that his speech was protected under the First Amendment," Judge Geoffrey Crawford said in his ruling.

The 34-year-old had been a prominent member of Columbia University protests against Israel's atrocities in Palestine and co-founded the Palestinian Student Union alongside Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in ICE custody in Louisiana as he fights his detention in court.

"Justice is inevitable. We will not fear anyone because our fight is a fight for love, a fight for democracy, a fight for humanity," Mahdawi said outside the courthouse last week.