A protester holds an image of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and a former Columbia University student, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States, on May 12, 2025. (Photo via Getty Images)
A prominent pro-Palestine Columbia University graduate has sued US President Donald Trump's administration for $20 million over his arrest and detention by immigration agents.
Mahmoud Khalil, one of the leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on American campuses, was in custody following his arrest in March.
Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and a Palestinian activist who helped organize campus protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza across the US last year, was arrested on March 8 in New York. He had since been held at an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
Khalil is also a legal permanent US resident and previously served as a lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, CUAD.
He was freed from a federal immigration detention center in Louisiana last month, hours after a judge ordered his release on bail.
The legal group backing Khalil said in a statement that the Trump administration carried out its illegal plan to arrest, detain, and deport Khalil in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family.
"The administration carried out its illegal plan to arrest, detain, and deport Mr. Khalil 'in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family,' the claim says," according to the Center for Constitutional Rights which is backing Khalil.
It added that during his detention, Khalil suffered severe emotional distress, economic hardship, and damage to his reputation.
Khalil called the lawsuit a first step towards accountability, stressing that there must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power.
"Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me. The trauma, the separation from my wife, the birth of my first child that I was forced to miss," he said in the statement.
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power."
Khalil has previously shared his "horrendous" experience in detention, where he "shared a dorm with over 70 men, absolutely no privacy, lights on all the time."
The administration has accused Khalil of anti-Semitism but officials have offered no evidence to support their claims, either publicly or in court files.
Critics have instead argued that the administration is using such claims to silence all forms of pro-Palestine advocacy.
Trump has begun following through on a threat to deport all non-citizen university activists with ties to the pro-Palestine protests, which rocked the US last spring.
Trump officials have accused these students of being “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the US over their condemnation of Israel’s months-long genocidal war on Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The moves have drawn stiff pushback from critics, who argue the Trump administration is punishing students for First Amendment-protected speech. However, administration officials maintain they possess the authority to cancel visas, claiming some students engaged in anti-Semitic or threatening conduct—accusations the students firmly reject.
