Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained for more than three months for leading protests against the slaughter of Palestinians and US collaboration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brutal military retaliation in Gaza, sued the Trump administration on Thursday for $20 million over his illegal arrest by immigration agents.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident married to a US citizen with a US-born son, was detained in March. The lawsuit alleges wrongful imprisonment.
Khalil was born in 1995 to Palestinian parents in a refugee camp in Syria and later pursued the most common path to U.S. citizenship through naturalization, which requires that he remain a lawful permanent resident for at least five years.
Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of US pro-Palestinian campus protests, sued the Trump administration Thursday for $20 million over his arrest and detention by immigration agents.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident in the United States who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, had been in custody following his arrest in March.
The 30-year-old was freed from a federal immigration detention center in Louisiana last month, hours after a judge ordered his release on bail.
“The administration carried out its illegal plan to arrest, detain, and deport Mr. Khalil ‘in a manner calculated to terrorise him and his family,’ the claim says,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights which is backing Khalil.
Khalil suffered “severe emotional distress, economic hardship (and) damage to his reputation,” the claim adds.
The Columbia University graduate was a figurehead of student protests against US ally Israel’s war in Gaza, and the Trump administration labeled him a national security threat.
He arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on Saturday, June 21, to cheers and ululations from friends and supporters.
The 30-year-old activist was reunited with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and greeted at the airport by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York.
“Not only if they threaten me with detention, even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine again,” Khalil said. “I just want to go back and just continue the work that I was already doing, advocating for Palestinian rights, speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished.”
Khalil, who recently graduated from Columbia University in Manhattan, was a prominent figure in the student protest movement that decried the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian civilians after Israel was attacked by Hamas.
Hamas is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islamist political and military organization that, since 2007, has governed the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Federal immigration agents arrested him in the lobby of his Columbia apartment building on March 8, making him the first target of Trump’s effort to deport international students with pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel views.
Ocasio-Cortez, speaking alongside Khalil at the airport, condemned the Trump administration for what she called “persecution based on political speech.”
“Being taken is wrong. It is illegal,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “It is an affront to every American.”
Khalil called his lawsuit a “first step towards accountability.”
“Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me. The trauma, the separation from my wife, the birth of my first child that I was forced to miss,” said Khalil. “There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power.”
Khalil has previously shared stories about his “horrendous” experience in detention, where he “shared a dorm with over 70 men, absolutely no privacy, lights on all the time.”
President Donald Trump’s government has justified pushing for Khalil’s deportation by claiming his continued presence in the United States could carry “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Khalil’s detention came amid Trump’s campaign against top US universities in recent months, with the president facing off against Columbia, Harvard, and other schools over foreign student enrollment while cutting federal grants and threatening to strip accreditation.
Beyond his legal case, Khalil’s team has expressed fear that he could face threats while out of detention because of the publicity and lies surrounding his sudden encounter with fame.
The situation in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply complex, historically rooted, and extremely tragic.
The most recent escalation, following events of October 7, 2023—when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel—has resulted in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to Israel’s military response.
Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages. This was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The Israeli government, led by accused war criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responded with a full-scale military campaign aimed at dismantling Hamas in Gaza. This has included intensive airstrikes, ground operations, and a blockade of the enclave.
Estimates ranging from 55,000 to 360,000 Palestinians have been reported killed, with thousands more injured and displaced. About 75 percent of the casualties are women and children, and entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble.
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