Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against senior Trump administration officials and several pro-Israel organisations, accusing them of conspiring to target, detain and deport him because of his advocacy for Palestinian rights.
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed the complaint on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Hardline Zionist groups the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar, as well as White House adviser Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other current and former officials, are named in the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that the government worked with the private groups to identify non-citizen students and scholars who supported Palestine before subjecting them to surveillance, arrest and attempted deportation. Khalil’s lawyers argue that the campaign sought to intimidate the wider Palestine solidarity movement and discourage constitutionally protected political speech.
“This case will expose the scheme that sought to criminalize the Palestine solidarity movement in the U.S.,” Khalil said after filing the action. He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a court order preventing the defendants from continuing the alleged campaign.
At the centre of the complaint is Project Esther, a document published by the Heritage Foundation in October 2024. The foundation describes the project as a national strategy to combat anti-Semitism and calls for a “public-private partnership” to dismantle what it labels a network supporting Hamas. Khalil’s lawsuit alleges that the document instead provided a blueprint for identifying pro-Palestine non-citizens and using federal immigration powers against them.
The complaint claims Betar and Canary Mission selected Khalil for targeting before communicating with federal officials. It cites a January 2025 Betar post which reportedly stated that Khalil was on the group’s “deport list” and that immigration authorities knew his address and whereabouts. Canary Mission is said to have also published material about Khalil shortly before immigration agents arrested him. These remain allegations which the defendants have yet to answer in court.
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The case invokes the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a Reconstruction-era law passed to prevent private vigilante groups and government officials from working together to deprive people of their constitutional rights. Khalil’s lawyers argue that the alleged coordination between federal officials and private pro-Israel organisations falls within the kind of conspiracy the legislation was designed to prohibit.
Federal immigration agents arrested Khalil on 8 March, 2025. The lawful permanent resident and former Columbia University graduate student was transferred to an immigration detention centre in Jena, Louisiana, where he spent 104 days and missed the birth of his first child. He has not been charged with a crime.
President Donald Trump celebrated Khalil’s arrest as the “first of many to come” and accused pro-Palestine students of being paid agitators without providing evidence. Before his detention, Khalil had reportedly warned Columbia University that he was facing a coordinated campaign calling for his deportation.
Khalil remains free after an appeals court temporarily barred the government from detaining or deporting him while his legal team prepares to seek a review by the US Supreme Court. His lawyers have also asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen and terminate his removal proceedings.
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