Mahmoud Khalil is seeking $20 million in damages from Donald Trump’s administration after the Columbia University graduate was locked up in an immigration detention center for more than 100 days for his role in campus demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza.
A court filing on Thursday serves as a precursor to a federal lawsuit against the administration, which is accused of pursuing retaliatory arrests and threatening to remove student activists involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations from the country.
Administration officials carried out a plan to target Khalil “in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family,” according to the claim.
Khalil spent more than three months in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he missed the birth of his son and his graduation ceremony from Columbia.
His experience there caused him “severe emotional distress, economic hardship, damage to his reputation, and significant impairment of his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights,” according to the claim.
Khalil is seeking $20 million to support other targeted students. But he would accept, in lieu of payment, an official apology and abandonment of the administration’s “unconstitutional” policy of arresting and deporting international students, according to his legal team.
“There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power,” Khalil said in a statement. “And I won’t stop here. I will continue to pursue justice against everyone who contributed to my unlawful detention or spread lies in an attempt to destroy my reputation, including those affiliated with Columbia University. I’m holding the U.S. government accountable not just for myself, but for everyone they try to silence through fear, exile, or detention.”
The complaint is directed at the State Department, Homeland Security and ICE, which Khalil’s attorneys accuse of “malicious prosecution and abuse of process, false arrest, false imprisonment, and negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
This is a developing story
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