Previously Detained Columbia Graduate Now Seeks Big Payday From Trump Admin

A college graduate student accused of pro-Hamas activism is seeking millions from the Trump administration weeks after being released from an immigration detention center.

Mahmoud Khalil — a Syrian-born Palestinian activist who became the face of anti-Israel demonstrations that rocked Columbia University’s campus throughout 2024 — is suing the Trump administration for $20 million for his arrest and months-long detention by federal immigration authorities, according to the Associated Press (AP). Khalil’s lawyers filed his claim Thursday, alleging he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and wrongly labeled as an anti-semite as the Trump administration sought to remove him from the country.

“I cannot describe the pain of that night,” Khalil said to the AP, speaking of his time in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. “This is something I will never forgive.”

Khalil reportedly plans to share any settlement money with other anti-Israel activists who’ve been targeted by the Trump administration. He also says he’d accept a formal apology and reforms to the White House’s deportation policies in lieu of a multi-million dollar settlement.

The lawsuit targets ICE, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and also the State Department.

The Trump administration — which has long argued that Khalil fomented the harassment of Jews on campus and conducted pro-Hamas activities — ripped his claims in response to the newly filed lawsuit.

“Mahmoud Khalil’s claim that DHS officials branded him as an antisemite and terrorized him and his family is absurd,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It was Khalil who terrorized Jewish students on campus.”

“He ‘branded’ himself as antisemite through his own hateful behavior and rhetoric,” McLaughlin said, adding that it’s a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the U.S. “The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews, and damages property.”

Amid the Israel-Hamas war, major U.S. universities in 2024 became overrun with leftist student protesters sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Largely at the center of these student protests was Columbia University in New York City, which at one point was rocked with protests so violent that university officials were forced to call the New York Police Department to make arrests.

Khalil — a graduate student living in the country on a non-immigrant student visa at the time of these events — positioned himself early on as the protest movement’s leader, speaking to media outlets and serving as an intermediary between Columbia and the demands of campus activists.

In a March lawsuit, nine American and Israeli Oct. 7 victims accused Khalil and other defendants of coordinating their efforts with Hamas since 2023, according to Reuters. Khalil’s attorneys have maintained that he is not connected to the terrorist organization.

ICE agents arrested Khalil at his university home on March 8, becoming the first of many alleged pro-Hamas actors at U.S. universities to be detained. The Syrian-born activist was swiftly flown to an immigration detention center in Louisiana where he remained as a challenge to his arrest played out in court.

However, Khalil scored a major victory when a New Jersey federal judge ordered ICE to release him from the Louisiana detention center in June, allowing him to walk free as his court case continues on.