The lawsuit

Mahmoud Khalil, the 31-year-old former Columbia University graduate student who became the face of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protesters, filed a federal lawsuit in Manhattan on Tuesday. The suit accuses senior administration officials and three private groups of conspiring to target him for his advocacy. Khalil, a legal permanent US resident married to an American citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment on 8 March 2025 and spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, and State Department official John Armstrong as defendants. The Heritage Foundation, the online surveillance groups Canary Mission and Betar, and their leaders are also named.

“This case is about far more than what was done to me. It's about exposing the network of organisations, political actors, and institutions that work together to criminalise solidarity with Palestine and to make an example of those who refuse to stay silent.”

The alleged conspiracy

Khalil's legal team argues that a direct line runs from a Heritage Foundation plan, dubbed Project Esther, to the targeting of activists by Canary Mission and Betar, which then fed into arrests and detention by the Trump administration. The complaint describes a "public-private partnership" that sought to dismantle the pro-Palestinian movement by identifying prominent non-citizens and conflating pro-Palestine advocacy with antisemitism. Betar US publicly claimed credit for Khalil's arrest, and the Guardian reported last year that the group said it had submitted "thousands of names" to the administration for similar treatment.

The New York Times notes that Khalil will need to convince a judge that the defendants coordinated to a degree that amounts to a conspiracy, showing an explicit connection between figures such as Stephen Miller and Heritage Foundation plan architects Robert Greenway and Victoria Coates. The Heritage Foundation declined to comment; Betar and Canary Mission did not immediately respond to requests for comment. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the executive branch "has the lawful authority to take actions that will protect the public and to ensure the integrity of our immigration system."

Deportation fight

Khalil continues to fight the government's effort to deport him in both federal and immigration court. The administration has accused him of propagating antisemitism to the detriment of American foreign policy aims. Khalil has repeatedly denied that his criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza is antisemitic. "My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide," he told the Associated Press. "It's as simple as that." His deportation case has moved with unusual speed through executive-branch-controlled immigration courts and may soon reach the US Supreme Court.

“But it does so because of Israel's actions, a country that uses Judaism as a shield against any criticism. And because this administration aligns itself with far-right politicians, at home and abroad.”

What comes next

If the Manhattan federal court entertains the lawsuit, it could yield more public information about coordination between private actors and the administration. The immigration court's deportation order is expected to wait until the federal lawsuit is resolved. Khalil's lawyers hope the suit will bar any aspects of the alleged conspiracy from being used to justify the ongoing deportation proceedings. The case is a long-shot attempt to hinder the administration's effort, and ideological alignment alone does not amount to conspiracy under the law.