Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student, filed a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday against the federal government and several private organizations. The suit alleges a conspiracy between senior officials of President Donald Trump’s administration, leaders of the Heritage Foundation, and online surveillance groups Canary Mission and Betar to suppress criticism of Israel. Khalil claims this public-private partnership sought to criminalize solidarity with Palestine by doxing, jailing, and attempting to deport supporters of the pro-Palestinian movement.
Khalil’s lawyers argue that the coordination with vigilante groups may violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law. A legal permanent resident married to a U.S. citizen, Khalil became a prominent spokesperson for student activists protesting Israel's actions in Gaza. He was arrested in March 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment, an event that made him the face of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Following his arrest, Khalil spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release. His deportation case, described as a priority for the Trump administration, has progressed with unusual speed through executive-branch-controlled immigration courts and may soon reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Khalil has denied that his advocacy for Palestinian rights amounts to antisemitism. He stated that his beliefs center on opposing the use of his tax money or tuition for investments in weapons manufacturers contributing to a genocide.