Who is Mahmoud Khalil and why is he filing a $20 million lawsuit against POTUS Donald Trump?
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Mahmoud Khalil is suing the Trump administration for $20 million over alleged illegal detention and defamation linked to his pro-Palestinian protests.Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student, has escalated his legal fight by filing an amended complaint that directly names President Donald Trump. Khalil is seeking $20 million in damages, arguing that efforts to deport him were politically motivated and tied to his involvement in protests against the war in Gaza.
Khalil is a legal permanent resident who has strong family connections to the U.S: his American wife and American-born daughter. He argues that the immigration authorities specifically targeted him due to his activism efforts on campus.
The administration says his deportation was not about silencing him. But Khalil's lawyers argue it was punishment for his views. They say his detention was an act of political retaliation.
Immigration agents arrested and detained Khalil back in March, and it took weeks before a judge could allow his release on bail last month.
He currently argues that he was not merely arrested over a typical aspect of immigration but that he was involved in a broader government crackdown on immigrant voices and student leaders who spoke out during the Trump presidency.
By suing the president, Khalil wants to show how students who spoke out often got caught between strict immigration rules and political pressure.
His case raises new questions about how far border control can go without violating free speech rights.
Columbia student's arrest raises questions
Agents of the federal immigration authorities arrested Khalil, provoking a raging legal and political conflict that involves issues of immigration law, foreign policy, and freedom of expression on campus as well.
The Trump regime is taking a more obscure foreign-policy clause to insist on removal by noting that even though Khalil completed his coursework in December 2024 at Columbia University, he still has not technically graduated, due to this spring.
The situation was further ignited by the denial of the interim president of Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, who revealed that the Homeland Security officers entered two student accommodation buildings with their signed search warrants, and officers did not seize anything nor detained more people.
Court papers show that Khalil, a 30-year-old Algerian with Palestinian origins who was married to a U.S. citizen, was brought to Louisiana once he was arrested, with the younger man claiming that he could overhear agents saying on the way that the White House had taken a direct interest in his status.
Mahmoud Khalil, figurehead of pro-Palestine campus protests in US, sues Trump administration for $20M over his "false imprisonment and malicious prosecution" pic.twitter.com/rJd0SRUsZ9
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) July 11, 2025At present, his future is still up in the air, with a federal judge delaying deportation proceedings so that more time could be spent to investigate whether his rights have been trampled upon and whether the actions of the government can stand up to legal challenges.
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Khalil's detention sparks debate on free speech, immigration, and political retaliation
Khalil is at the center of a civil rights lawsuit backed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which claims the U.S. government singled him out and mistreated him to scare him, his family, and people close to him because of his political activism.
The Trump administration labeled Khalil, a student, that became a national security threat because of his leading role in the student protests against military actions of Israel in Gaza.
The claim cited that his unlawful arrest and the extended imprisonment had not only caused irredeemable emotional damages but also caused major financial and reputation losses.
Khalil has spoken publicly about the harsh conditions he faced in detention, packed with many others in crowded, uncomfortable spaces for over three months with no privacy.
For him, this lawsuit is just the first step in holding the government accountable for what he calls an abuse of power meant to silence free speech.
In the meantime, the administration has justified its moves saying that his arrest was legal considering what they describe as violence rhetoric and anti-Semitism harassment of which his supporters are adamant.
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TOPICS: Mahmoud Khalil, Donald Trump