NEW YORK — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil is suing the federal government and several private groups, alleging they were part of a conspiracy to suppress criticism of Israel through a campaign to dox, jail and ultimately deport student activists.
The civil rights suit, filed Tuesday, names the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, as the architect of what it describes as a conspiracy to target members of the pro-Palestinian movement by smearing them as antisemites.
Those efforts were furthered by Canary Mission and Betar, two pro-Israel groups that maintain online lists of Israel's critics, often alongside unsubstantiated claims that they are affiliated with Hamas, according to the lawsuit.
Those “selected for state targeting” by the private actors, the suit states, “were nearly automatically targeted by the Federal Defendants for arrest and removal.”
Lawyers for Khalil argue this “public-private partnership” could violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law that sought to restrict government coordination with vigilante groups.
Emailed inquiries to the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, did not comment on the lawsuit, but said in an email that the executive branch “has the lawful authority to take actions that will protect the public and to ensure the integrity of our immigration system.”
The lawsuit comes as Khalil's ongoing deportation case appears likely to be heard before the U.S. Supreme Court. Many of the details included in the complaint were first brought to light in a separate trial last year.
At a news conference on Tuesday, he said the lawsuit was “about exposing the network of organizations, particular actors and institutions that work together to criminalize solidarity with Palestine and to make an example of those who refuse to stay silent."
“If constitutional protections can be cast aside under political pressure today, they can be cast aside tomorrow against anyone,” he added.
A former graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil gained prominence as a spokesperson and leader for student activists protesting against Israel and its actions in Gaza.
He was arrested in March 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment. He quickly became the face of the Trump administration crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Khalil then spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.
Khalil has forcefully denied that his role in pro-Palestinian protests amounts to antisemitism.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” he previously told The Associated Press. “It’s as simple as that.”