A few weeks out of detention, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is pursuing justice as his legal team filed a $20 million claim on Thursday against the Trump administration, accusing it of falsely imprisoning him, pursuing a prosecution, and labelling him an “antisemite” to deport him due to his high-profile involvement in campus protests.
The claim, a necessary step before filing a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, targets the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the State Department, as reported by AP.
It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.
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The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence. “They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked,” AP reported.
Khalil said he plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, dismissed Mahmoud Khalil’s claim as “absurd,” accusing him of engaging in “hateful behaviour and rhetoric” that allegedly endangered Jewish students, AP reported.
Khalil’s filing, however, alleges that Trump and other officials orchestrated a reckless and unlawful campaign aimed at intimidating him and his family, starting with his arrest on March 8.
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On that night, he said he was returning home from dinner with his wife, Noor Abdalla, when he was “effectively kidnapped” by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.
He was then whisked overnight to an immigration jail in Jena, Louisiana, a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.
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Inside, Khalil said he was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights and fed “nearly inedible” food, causing him to lose 15 pounds (7 kilograms). “I cannot remember a night when I didn’t go to sleep hungry,” Khalil recalled, as reported by AP.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
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Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terror group. “At some point, it becomes like reality TV,” Khalil said of the allegations. “It’s very absurd.”