Mahmoud Khalil sues Trump officials and anti-Palestinian groups under KKK Act

Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist, former Columbia University graduate student, and lawful permanent resident, filed a federal lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against senior Trump administration officials and private organizations.

The suit alleges a conspiracy to target him for deportation due to his pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (42 U.S.C. § 1985(3)), the complaint claims a “public-private partnership” between government officials and groups including the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar violated Khalil’s civil rights.

Lawyers argue this coordination used immigration enforcement to suppress Palestinian rights advocacy through doxxing, detention, and pretextual accusations of antisemitism or terrorism.

Khalil was arrested by ICE in March 2025 at his Columbia campus apartment amid pro-Palestinian protests.

He spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration detention facility, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release, deeming aspects of his detention presumptively unconstitutional.

His deportation case, which has proceeded rapidly, remains ongoing and could head to the Supreme Court.

The lawsuit names figures such as Stephen Miller, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others, along with the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” described as a blueprint for a public-private effort to dismantle Palestine solidarity movements.

Khalil’s legal team from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and others contend the targeting stemmed from anti-Palestinian animus to intimidate broader activism.

“This case is about whether government power can be weaponized by private actors to target human rights defenders and strip people of their constitutional rights,” CCR’s summary stated.

Khalil has denied antisemitism charges, telling the Associated Press: “My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide. It’s as simple as that.”

The suit seeks damages and aims to expose what plaintiffs call authoritarian tactics bypassing due process.

Private defendants like Canary Mission (known for blacklisting critics of ‘Israel’) and Betar allegedly conducted surveillance and doxxing that fed into government actions.

Khalil, a Palestinian refugee married to a US citizen and father to a US citizen child, has become a prominent symbol in debates over free speech, immigration enforcement, and campus protests.