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Khalil sues over conspiracy
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Tuesday against Trump administration officials and pro-Israel groups, accusing them of conspiring to target him and others as punishment for their support of Palestinian rights.
The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, names White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, along with the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar.
Khalil, a permanent US resident who was arrested in March 2025 and held for 104 days in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit, "This case is about far more than what was done to me."
He added, "It’s about a coordinated, ongoing campaign to punish, silence and intimidate anyone who dares to speak out for Palestinian liberation," as the Center for Constitutional Rights brought the case under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.
Officials and groups respond
A White House spokesperson said in a statement that "Khalil obtained his visa by willfully and intentionally failing to accurately report information relevant to his background," while a DHS spokesperson said the agency had "acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority" with respect to Khalil.
Khalil’s lawsuit alleges the Trump administration coordinated with Betar and Canary Mission in selecting “targets of the conspiracy,” and it traces the alleged effort to a Heritage Foundation blueprint called “Project Esther”.
At the same Tuesday press conference, speakers included actors Cynthia Nixon and Morgan Spector, and Khalil argued that his case is about whether the federal government can work with private groups to target people for First Amendment-protected activism.
In a separate account of the legal fight, CNN en Español reported that a federal appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision that had released Khalil from an immigrant detention center, ordering the district court to dismiss his habeas corpus petition.
Deportation case and stakes
The lawsuit comes as Khalil’s deportation case continues, with the government having continued its effort to deport him after he was released from immigration detention last June.
Noticias SIN said Khalil was released on 20 de junio after more than 100 days in a detention center in Luisiana, and it described the case as seeking damages and a court order to halt what it calls a simulated process to secure deportations.
In the appeals process, CNN en Español reported that a panel of three judges from the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that immigration challenges must be filed via a petition for review of the final order of removal, not through a habeas corpus petition in a district court.
Khalil’s legal team said they would ask the supreme court to intervene, and the lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a judicial order to end the alleged conspiracy to suppress pro-Palestinian speech through a coordinated campaign to dox, jail and ultimately deport student activists.
