Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian-descent permanent U.S. resident and Columbia University graduate, filed a 131-page federal lawsuit on July 14, 2026, accusing Trump administration officials and pro-Israel advocacy groups of conspiring to suppress Palestinian-rights activism in the United States. The suit names six federal officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—plus The Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar, alleging a coordinated public-private campaign to intimidate non-citizen activists through detention and public smearing.
Khalil's complaint marks a rare legal invocation of an 1870s anti-racism statute (the Ku Klux Klan Act) against modern-day alleged collaboration between government agencies and private groups. The lawsuit emerges from Khalil's own detention: he was arrested by plainclothes ICE agents in March 2025 and held for 104 days, causing him to miss his first child's birth. A federal judge later ruled the detention unconstitutional and violating his First Amendment rights.
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Table of Contents
- What Happened to Khalil
- The Alleged Conspiracy and "Project Esther"
- The Legal Strategy—Why the KKK Act
- Other Lawsuits and Parallel Cases
- What Khalil's Case Reveals About Palestinian Advocacy Under Scrutiny
What Happened to Khalil
Khalil was arrested on March 9, 2025, by ICE agents in his campus apartment and detained 1,300 miles from his pregnant wife in Louisiana. He remained imprisoned for 104 days and missed the birth of his first child. An immigration judge in Louisiana ruled him deportable in September 2025, though a Third Circuit Court of Appeals stay issued May 26, 2026, now keeps his immigration status uncertain pending potential Supreme Court review.
Despite the constitutional violation ruling, Khalil remains vulnerable to deportation. His permanent resident status does not protect him from removal under immigration law if the courts reject his appeals. The prolonged detention, separation from his family, and ongoing threat of deportation form the personal foundation of his broader conspiracy claim.
The Alleged Conspiracy and "Project Esther"
The lawsuit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and State Department official John Armstrong as defendants. The suit alleges these officials coordinated with private groups to suppress Palestinian advocacy. Central to the claim is The Heritage Foundation's "Project Esther," described as a blueprint designed to dismantle the U.S.
pro-Palestine movement by targeting prominent non-citizens. According to the complaint, Canary Mission and Betar—pro-Israel advocacy organizations—publicly identified targets as antisemites and affiliated with Hamas, using unsubstantiated claims. These accusations, the lawsuit asserts, were coordinated with government agencies to justify detention and removal. The complaint alleges the conspiracy intended to terrorize and make an example of Khalil and other non-citizen Palestinian-rights advocates to intimidate and weaken Palestinian solidarity movements overall.
The Legal Strategy—Why the KKK Act
Khalil's lawyers—represented by the Center for Constitutional rights—invoke 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), a Reconstruction-era statute originally enacted to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from collaborating with government officials to strip individuals of constitutional rights. The law forbids conspiracies by private and public actors to deprive citizens or residents of equal protection.
This statute applies when private groups and government officials work together to target individuals based on protected characteristics or speech. Khalil's legal theory frames his detention and the accompanying public campaigns as precisely this kind of coordinated assault—private smearing campaigns paired with government enforcement. The KKK Act, though rarely invoked in modern civil rights cases, provides a distinct legal hook beyond simple First Amendment or detention-based claims. Success requires proving both the conspiracy and that the defendants acted specifically to suppress Khalil's speech or targeting based on his national origin or political views.
Other Lawsuits and Parallel Cases
Khalil has separately filed a $ 20 million Federal Tort Claims Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the State Department for his detention. That claim targets the government directly for damages, distinct from this conspiracy suit, which targets the alleged coordination between government and private groups.
The conspiracy lawsuit remains in early procedural stages as of August 2026. No settlement discussions have been announced. If the case proceeds to trial, it will test whether federal law can hold government officials liable for coordinating with private advocacy groups to suppress political speech through detention.
What Khalil's Case Reveals About Palestinian Advocacy Under Scrutiny
The lawsuit illustrates a legal and political friction point: the extent to which the government can target non-citizen activists engaged in Palestinian-rights advocacy without crossing into conspiracy or First Amendment violations. Khalil's status as a permanent resident—not yet a citizen—complicated his legal protections.
If the conspiracy claim survives pretrial motions, it may establish precedent that government agencies cannot coordinate with private smear campaigns to justify immigration enforcement. If the courts reject the claim, it may signal narrower legal boundaries around what constitutes actionable conspiracy in public-private targeting of political activists. The outcome affects not only Khalil's deportation risk but also how future enforcement actions against politically engaged non-citizens can be legally challenged.