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Rights & Justice
Mahmoud Khalil to Sue Trump Admin for $20 Million Over 'Unconstitutional' Detention
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," said Khalil. "And I won't stop here."
Jul 10, 2025
Pro-Palestinian student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil on Thursday began the process of suing U.S. President Donald Trump's administration for $20 million in damages for the harm he suffered as a result of the government's "politically motivated plan to unlawfully arrest, detain, and deport" him.
"This is the first step towards accountability," Khalil said in a statement. "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. But let's be clear, the same government that targeted me for speaking out is using taxpayer dollars to fund Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power," he asserted. "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."
In March, federal agents who were in plain clothes and lacked a warrant accosted Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who recently finished a graduate program at Columbia, and his wife—Noor Abdalla, a U.S. citizen who was then pregnant with their son—outside their New York City home. Following Khalil's arrest, several other student activists critical of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza were also targeted for deportation.
The claim that 30-year-old Khalil filed Thursday against the U.S. Homeland Security and State departments, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is a precursor to a lawsuit that will cite the Federal Tort Claims Act of 1946, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), part of his legal team.
The filing accuses the Trump administration of carrying out a plan to deport Khalil "in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family," and says the mistreatment caused "severe emotional distress, economic hardship, damage to his reputation, and significant impairment of his First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights."
Mahmoud Khalil has filed a claim against the Trump administration, seeking either $20 million or an official apology and change in the administration’s policy after he was held in detention for over 100 days. NBC News’ Maya Eaglin spoke to Khalil in New York City.
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— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) July 10, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent who was finally freed from an ICE facility in Louisiana last month, is seeking $20 million to help others similarly targeted by the government and Columbia, but "he would accept, in lieu of payment, an official apology and abandonment of the administration's unconstitutional policy," CCR explained.
The Associated Press reported that "a White House spokesperson deferred comment to the State Department, which said its actions were fully supported by the law. In an emailed statement, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, called Khalil's claim 'absurd,' accusing him of 'hateful behavior and rhetoric' that threatened Jewish students."
While the departments' comments signal that the Trump administration won't be making any apologies, Khalil's team is determined to move forward with his case.
"The Trump administration's unconstitutional targeting of Mr. Khalil led to severe harms that he continues to navigate, including financial loss, reputational damage, and emotional distress," said Samah Sisay, staff attorney at CCR. "Mr. Khalil will never get back the three months stolen from him while in immigration detention, including his child's birth and first months of life. The government must take accountability for their unlawful actions and compensate Mr. Khalil for his suffering."
Khalil's claim was filed a day after an ICE official testified under oath that a task force formed in March used lists from Canary Mission, an operation linked to Israeli intelligence agencies, and the pro-Israel group Betar Worldwide to compile reports on international students targeted for their protest activities.
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DHS Official Admits Agency Used Secretive Pro-Israel Group's Blacklist to Target Foreign Students
"The U.S. government is laundering repression through a private blacklist," said one pro-Palestinian news outlet.
Jul 10, 2025
Confirming what students detained by the Trump administration have suspected for months, a senior homeland security official on Wednesday admitted for the first time that his agency had used a website run by a secretive pro-Israel group that compiles "blacklists" of pro-Palestinian students as it worked to carry out President Donald Trump's policy of arresting international students for their protest activities earlier this year.
In a courtroom in Massachusetts during a hearing on a Harvard University faculty group's lawsuit over Trump's attempts to deport pro-Palestinian students, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Peter Hatch testified under oath that a task force he formed in March scoured a list compiled by Canary Mission, an operation linked to Israel's intelligence agencies, to compile reports on the students on the list.
Hatch, the assistant director of ICE's homeland security investigations department, said the team was ordered to rush an analysis of roughly 5,000 students listed on Canary Mission's website, which includes photos and names of students who have taken part in "anti-Israel events." One student listed participated in a student walkout at Harvard University in support of boycotting Israel, and another attended a rally organized by Jews for Cease-fire.
Such allegations were evidently enough to warrant Hatch's team compiling reports on 100-200 of the non-citizen students listed on Canary Mission's website. Hatch said the team relied on Canary Mission's list as well as a list compiled by another pro-Israel group, Betar Worldwide.
Hatch told lawyers for the plaintiffs in the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) lawsuit and Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts that his team's reports detailed the students' employment and travel history, criminal activity, and alleged support for terrorist groups such as Hamas. He said the students' use of phrases including "Free Palestine" were included in the reports as well.
The Trump administration has claimed students have shown "support for terrorist groups" simply by participating in protests against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza, where at least 57,762 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023. Nearly 70% of those killed in Gaza were verified by the United Nations to be women and children as of November 2024, even as both Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers have claimed Israel is targeting Hamas.
Hatch's team sent the reports on students to the U.S. State Department, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said Columbia University student organizer Mahmoud Khalil's participation in protests was detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests, after Khalil was arrested by ICE. Khalil was ultimately detained in Louisiana for three months.
Hatch testified that the ICE office used the lists compiled by Canary Mission and Betar "without a firm understanding of the methodology through which individuals came to be included on either record," according to The New York Times.
Five of the students included in the reports sent to the State Department have been named in the AAUP's lawsuit as non-citizen students who were targeted by ICE for their pro-Palestinian speech.
The AAUP and other plaintiffs in the case argue the Trump administration has imposed an "ideological deportation policy" by detaining and trying to remove Khalil, Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, and others.
Students have posited for months that Canary Mission's blacklists were likely involved in the administration's rounding up of pro-Palestinian organizers, with Sophie Hurwitz reporting at Mother Jones this week that Öztürk was detained only "after being smeared on Canary Mission's website, being falsely labeled as being antisemitic."
A judge who ordered the release of another student activist, Efe Ercelik of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said Ercelik had been jailed "almost exclusively" because he was included in blacklists compiled by Canary Mission and Betar.
Khalil's lawyers filed a Freedom of Information Act request after his arrest, seeking information about Canary Mission's role in his targeting by ICE. The group's anonymously run website includes an extensive report on Khalil's expressions of support for Palestinians and his protest activities.
But Hatch's testimony marks the first time Canary Mission's involvement in the targeting of students has been acknowledged by the administration.
Young ordered the Trump administration to provide partially redacted reports that Hatch's team compiled on students to the plaintiffs' lawyers on Wednesday evening.
As James Bamford wrote at The Nation in December 2023, Canary Mission is "a key intelligence asset for the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a highly secretive intelligence organization that is largely focused on the United States." A profile of Palestinian American student Lara Alqasem was compiled by Canary Mission and used to prevent her from entering Israel in 2018; Alqasem was planning to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but Israel attempted to bar her from doing so because she was the chapter president of Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida.
The pro-Palestinian news outlet Mondoweiss said the information disclosed by Hatch on Wednesday "is bigger than one trial."
"The U.S. government is laundering repression through a private blacklist," said Mondoweiss. "It's criminalizing dissent, undermining free speech, and exporting Israel's surveillance playbook into U.S. policy."
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Federal Judge Blocks Trump Birthright Citizenship Order, But Fight 'Far From Over'
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," said a member of the legal team behind the class action suit.
Jul 10, 2025
The battle over U.S. President Donald Trump's attack on birthright citizenship continued on Thursday, when a federal judge in New Hampshire gave a green light to a class action lawsuit and blocked the Republican's contested executive order.
Advocacy groups including the ACLU, Asian Law Caucus, Democracy Defenders Fund, and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) launched the case last month, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority limited nationwide injunctions—often used by lower courts to stop seemingly illegal policies like Trump's birthright move—but declined to weigh in on the actual order, which three different district judges had blocked.
"The court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship."
Experts warn there will still be challenges to the class action route, but U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—gave the groups their first win in the new case, certifying "a nationwide class that protects the citizenship rights of all children born on U.S. soil," with a seven-day delay to allow for an appeal from the Trump adminsitration.
"Class petitioners have demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; that class petitioners are likely to suffer irreparable harm if the order is not granted; that the potential harm to the class petitioners if the order is not granted outweighs the potential harm to respondents if the order is granted; and that the issuance of this order is in the public interest," the judge wrote.
ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project deputy director Cody Wofsy, who argued the case, said in a statement that "this ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended."
"We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn't trample on the citizenship rights of one single child," Wofsy declared.
Aarti Kohli, executive director of Asian Law Caucus, noted that "since the Supreme Court's decision, parents have lived in fear and uncertainty, wondering whether they should give birth in a different state, whether their newborns would be subject to deportation, and what kind of future awaits their children."
BREAKING: Judge in new case challenging Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship grants class certification and blocks enforcement of the order. The injunction is stayed for seven days to allow any appeal.
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 11:25 AM
LDF senior counsel Morenike Fajana called the district judge's decision "a powerful affirmation of the 14th Amendment and the enduring principle that citizenship in the United States is a right by birth, not a privilege granted by politics."
"By granting nationwide class certification and blocking the executive order from taking effect, the court has sent a clear message: All children born on U.S. soil are entitled to the full rights and protections of citizenship," Fajana continued. "This is a critical victory for families across the country, and we will continue to defend the constitutional promise of equal protection under the law."
While welcoming Thursday's win for the plaintiffs, "and millions of families across this country, who deserve clarity, and stability," Tianna Mays, legal director for Democracy Defenders Fund, also stressed that "the fight to uphold the guarantee of birthright citizenship is far from over, and we will continue to advocate to ensure we keep that promise."
Though not directly commenting on the judge's decision, the Trump administration signaled Thursday that it will keep fighting to end birthright citizenship and impose the other components of the president's anti-immigrant agenda.
"The Trump administration," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News ahead of the hearing, "is committed to lawfully implementing the president's executive order to protect the meaning and value of American citizenship and which restores the 14th Amendment to its original intent."
After Thursday's ruling, according to the news outlet,
the Department of Justice referred NBC News to a previous statement from Attorney General Pam Bondi last week that followed another judge's order in a separate immigration case, saying a "rogue district court judge is already trying to circumvent the Supreme Court's recent ruling against nationwide injunctions." Bondi added in that statement, "the American people see right through this" and that Department of Justice attorneys will continue to fight for Trump's agenda to secure the U.S. border.
Bondi's statement last week was in response to a judge in Washington, D.C. blocking Trump's crackdown on asylum-seekers.
Lee Gelernt, an ACLU attorney who argued that case, said at the time that the "hugely important decision" will "save the lives of families fleeing grave danger" and "reaffirms that the president cannot ignore the laws Congress has passed and the most basic premise of our country's separation of powers."
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In 'Serious Blow to Our Democracy,' Supreme Court Allows Trump Mass Firing Order
The high court's decision to "release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation," said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless."
Jul 08, 2025
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a block on U.S. President Donald Trump's February executive order directing federal agency leaders to "promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force" and a related memorandum.
In response to a lawsuit filed by a coalition of labor unions, local governments, and nonprofits, Judge Susan Illston—appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by former President Bill Clinton—had issued a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction, which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in May.
That legal battle led to the Supreme Court's shadow docket, where emergency decisions don't have to be signed. The Tuesday opinion from the high court's unidentified majority states that Illston's injunction was based on a view that Trump's order implementing his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) "Workforce Optimization Initiative" and a joint memo from the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management "are unlawful."
"Because the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful—and because the other factors bearing on whether to grant a stay are satisfied—we grant the application," the Supreme Court continued, emphasizing that the justices did not weigh in on the legality of any related agency reduction in force (RIF) and reorganization plans.
BREAKING: The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to resume agency mass-firing plans over the dissent of Justice Jackson, who criticized "this Court’s demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture." More to come at Law Dork:
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— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson publicly dissented on Tuesday. Another liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in a short concurrence that "the plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the court's stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance."
Meanwhile, Jackson argued that "given the fact-based nature of the issue in this case and the many serious harms that result from allowing the president to dramatically reconfigure the federal government, it was eminently reasonable for the district court to maintain the status quo while the courts evaluate the lawfulness of the president's executive action."
She continued:
At bottom, this case is about whether that action amounts to a structural overhaul that usurps Congress' policymaking prerogatives—and it is hard to imagine deciding that question in any meaningful way after those changes have happened. Yet, for some reason, this court sees fit to step in now and release the president's wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation.
In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless. Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts—including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities. I see no basis to conclude that the district court erred—let alone clearly so—in finding that the president is attempting to fundamentally restructure the federal government.
Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts for Slate, said on social media that "Justice Jackson's criticism is spot-on, of course. But as Justice Sotomayor's concurrence suggests, SCOTUS' order looks like a negotiated compromise that leaves the district court room to block future RIFs and agency 'restructuring.' So the damage is limited."
"The real test will be what happens once agencies start to develop and implement plans for mass firings—which will, by and large, be illegal," he warned. "District courts still have discretion, for now, to stop them. Will SCOTUS freeze their orders and let unlawful RIFs and restructurings proceed? I fear it will."
Trump’s firings at federal agencies have upended the lives of thousands of workers.These are the people who oversee air safety, food and drug safety, disaster response, public health, and much more.Replacing civil servants with Trump loyalists is right out of Project 2025.
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— Robert Reich (@rbreich.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The coalition that challenged the order and memo includes the American Federation of Government Employees and four AFGE locals; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); Service Employees International Union and three SEIU Locals; Alliance for Retired Americans; American Geophysical Union; American Public Health Association; Center for Taxpayer Rights; Coalition to Protect America's National Parks; Common Defense; Main Street Alliance; Natural Resources Defense Council; Northeast Organic Farming Association Inc.; VoteVets; and Western Watersheds Project.
It also includes the governments of Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Harris County, Texas; King County, Washington; and both San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California.
"Today's decision has dealt a serious blow to our democracy and puts services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy," the coalition said Tuesday. "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution."
"While we are disappointed in this decision," the coalition added, "we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy."
Congressman Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was similarly critical but determined on Tuesday.
"The Trump-appointed Supreme Court just surrendered to a dangerous vision for America, letting the administration gut federal agencies by firing expert civil servants," he said. " The damage from these mass firings will last for decades, and weaken the government’s ability to respond to disasters and provide essential benefits and services. Oversight Democrats will not sit back as Trump turns the court into a political weapon. We will keep fighting to protect the American people and prevent the destruction of our federal agencies."
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