Palestinian Columbia graduate and former student activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a lawsuit in Manhattan on Thursday that demands the Trump administration release its communications with Betar, Canary Mission and similar organizations that target students critical of Israel.
Khalil’s Manhattan federal court suit alleges statements made by the privately-run organizations taking credit for his arrest by immigration agents earlier this year indicate the Trump administration coordinated with them to target him and other international students who have spoken out against Israeli military activity in Gaza and the West Bank.
“For months, shady organizations and individuals carried out a smear and harassment campaign designed to intimidate and silence me,” Khalil said in a statement. “The public deserves full accountability for every bad actor who helped make that possible.”
The suit, filed by Khalil and the Center for Constitutional Rights under the Freedom of Information Act, demands that the Justice Department, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies produce any communications with the far-right groups relating to attempts to deport him.
It says that in the months leading to his March arrest, groups including Betar and Canary Mission subjected him and other international student activists to “an ugly campaign” that included sharing his address online, slandering his advocacy for Palestinians as antisemitic and supportive of terrorism, and tagging Trump officials in online posts calling for his deportation.
“After the Trump administration took office and emboldened by their access to high-level administration officials, these groups engaged in an effort to get Mr. Khalil arrested and deported precisely because those groups sought to silence him and deter others from speaking out against an unfolding genocide in Gaza,” the suit reads.
In the wake of Khalil’s arrest, Betar US, which the Anti-Defamation League classifies as an extremist organization, told the Guardian that it had submitted a “deportation list” to Trump officials naming thousands of students who had protested against Israel.
Khalil graduated from Columbia with a master’s in international diplomacy in May. In 2023 and 2024, he played a prominent role in campus protests against the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, launched in response to the Hamas terror attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The 30-year-old, a Palestinian born in a refugee camp in Syria, who is married to a U.S. citizen, was targeted for deportation in March, despite his status as a green card holder.
When the administration’s basis for seeking to deport him failed — which hinged on a provision in a 1952 law that empowers the Secretary of State to order someone expelled from the U.S. on account of their beliefs — the government relied on a lesser offense, that he had failed to fill out his green card application comprehensively. His attorneys have described those allegations as baseless.
He was jailed for more than 100 days in Louisiana, missing the birth of his first child and his graduation, before a New Jersey judge overseeing a case challenging the lawfulness of his detention in June ordered that he be released while he defends himself in the Trump administration’s parallel efforts to deport him. An immigration judge for the executive branch has ordered him deported, which he is appealing.
“Instead of filing frivolous lawsuits, Mahmoud Khalil should be more concerned with the student visa he obtained by fraud and misrepresentation,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to the Daily News Thursday.
“Those who lie to the government to obtain entry into the United States will face justice.”
Khalil is not in the U.S. on a student visa, but is a permanent resident with a green card.
The News reached out to Canary Mission and Betar for comment.
With Cayla Bamberger
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