Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and US resident, appeared before a federal appeals court in Philadelphia as Trump administration lawyers push to deport him. His case, tied to campus activism at Columbia University, has become a test of free speech and political dissent rights.
Published On 21 Oct 202521 Oct 2025
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Khalil Mack unspooled his elbow wrap and removed his brace as he spoke to reporters Thursday for the first time since sustaining his injury last month. Does Mack, the Chargers’ star outside linebacker, believe he can play Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts?
“For sure,” he said.
That will ultimately be up to general manager Joe Hortiz and coach Jim Harbaugh, Mack said. The 34-year-old, in his fourth season with the Chargers, said he’s “slightly ready to go” if his number is called upon, just days after his 21-day activation window opened Tuesday.
Mack was listed as questionable Friday, along with wide receiver Derius Davis, linebacker Troy Dye, offensive lineman Jamaree Salyer and linebacker Denzel Perryman. Running back Hassan Haskins also was listed as questionable after practicing all week.
Offensive tackle Joe Alt (ankle) was listed as doubtful for Sunday. Alt practiced Thursday and Friday.
“I’m not going to say I can or can’t,” Alt said Wednesday when asked whether he’d play. “We’re just going to continue to progress and see where it means for me going forward.”
Defensive back Elijah Molden (thumb) did not practice all week and was also listed as doubtful. Wide receiver Quentin Johnston (hamstring) is set to play after missing last week’s win over the Miami Dolphins.
US immigration judge said prominent pro-Palestine activist withheld information on green card application.
Published On 18 Sep 202518 Sep 2025
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An immigration judge in the United States has ordered that pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil, who played a leading role in protests last year against Israel’s war on Gaza at the prestigious Columbia University, be deported to Algeria or Syria.
Court documents, revealed on Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), showed that Louisiana immigration Judge Jamee Comans issued the ruling on September 12, accusing Khalil of failing to disclose key information when he applied and secured lawful permanent residency in the US.
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Khalil, a native of Syria and an Algerian citizen of Palestinian origin, has previously said he fears being targeted by Israel for his activism if he is deported to either country.
Judge Comans claimed that Khalil did not disclose his ties to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an activist group which advocates for an economic boycott of Israel, on his green card application, describing it as a “lack of candor” by the applicant.
“This Court finds that Respondent wilfully misrepresented material fact(s) for the sole purpose of circumventing the immigration process and reducing the likelihood his applications could be denied,” Comans said.
Khalil’s lawyers responded, saying that they intend to appeal the deportation order, and pointed to a federal district court’s order earlier this year prohibiting the government from immediately deporting or detaining Khalil as his federal court case proceeds.
Khalil’s legal team now has 30 days from the day of the deportation ruling, on September 12, to appeal against the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals. His lawyers said they expect the appeal process to be swift and their attempt unsuccessful, as noncitizens are “almost never” granted stays of removal.
US immigration agents first arrested Khalil – a former graduate student at Columbia University in New York – on March 8 after showing up at his student apartment building on campus in the city.
The arrest was part of a wider crackdown on pro-Palestine activism on college campuses across the US, which saw several overseas students detained and deported while universities were hit with federal funding cuts by Trump over alleged anti-Semitic activities.
Authorities held Khalil at an immigration detention centre in Louisiana for three months until he was released in June following a ruling by US District Judge Michael Farbiarz that his detention was unconstitutional.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and law enforcement officials had repeatedly portrayed Khalil’s peaceful activism as anti-Jewish and supportive of Hamas, but they failed to provide any evidence backing their allegations.
Farbiarz ruled that the Trump administration was likely violating Khalil’s right to free speech by detaining and attempting to deport him under a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which allows the removal of foreign nationals who bear “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
The White House has been relentless in its attempts to deport Khalil, pivoting more recently to the alleged violations of his green card application.
Khalil’s lawyers expressed concern following the deportation ruling that the “only meaningful impediment” to their client’s deportation was now the “important order prohibiting removal” issued by Judge Farbiarz.
In a statement published by the ACLU on Wednesday, Khalil also accused the Trump administration of using “fascist tactics” to retaliate against him for his “exercise of free speech”.
“When their first effort to deport me was set to fail, they resorted to fabricating baseless and ridiculous allegations in a bid to silence me for speaking out and standing firmly with Palestine, demanding an end to the ongoing genocide [in Gaza],” Khalil said.
When Khalil Mack suffered a left elbow injury after colliding with a teammate while tackling the Raiders’ Geno Smith, the concern wasn’t whether he’d miss time, but how much.
Fortunately for the Chargers, the diagnosis was a dislocated elbow, sidelining him four weeks on injured reserve — far better than the season-ending outcome many had feared.
“He’s like Wolverine,” coach Jim Harbaugh said, invoking the regenerating “X-Men” character. “One of the toughest things I’ve ever seen. He wasn’t going to sit or lay down on the field. … A new level of respect.”
Mack has been remarkably durable in his Chargers tenure, starting 52 of 53 games.
Last season, however, he played through a groin injury, never at full strength. The timing of this setback is especially frustrating, given that the team had held him out of the preseason to preserve him for the regular season.
Losing Mack is a significant blow heading into the team’s third AFC West matchup in three weeks. His impact was evident before leaving Monday’s game, when he disrupted the Raiders’ offense early, including a key third-down sack.
While Mack’s absence is challenging, the defense appears to be in steady hands. It has already proved it can uphold last year’s standard when it finished as the league’s No. 1 scoring defense unit by limiting opponents to 15 points per game through two weeks.
The edge rusher group will take on elevated roles in Mack’s absence.
Tuli Tuipulotu, viewed by the organization as a future star, will anchor the unit alongside veteran Bud Dupree.
Caleb Murphy, primarily a special teamer, logged a career-high 34 snaps against the Raiders and is expected to have a more defined role. Rookie fourth-round pick Kyle Kennard, still on the practice squad, is also in line for a promotion to give the team a fourth option.
Harbaugh didn’t rule out the front office seeking outside help via trade or free agency, saying, “We’ll look. We’re always looking, and see what the coming days bring.”
Israel’s military described its attack on a residential complex in central Doha, Qatar, as a “precise” attack.
In an official statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian movement Hamas said the attack killed five of its members, and a Qatari officer, but did not eliminate its negotiating delegation or any of its senior leadership.
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Here is what we know about the victims, and the senior leaders who were targeted – but who appear to have survived the attack:
Reports say the strike targeted senior Hamas figures, including Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s exiled Gaza leader and main negotiator.
Al-Hayya rose in importance after the killings of top Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, and military commander Mohammed Deif last year. Sinwar, who had taken charge in Gaza after Haniyeh’s death, was killed later in 2024.
With those losses, al-Hayya is now one of five leaders steering Hamas’s leadership council.
The leadership council refers to the temporary, five-member ruling committee that was formed in late 2024 to govern the group during the war.
Born in the Gaza Strip in 1960, al-Hayya has been part of Hamas since it was set up in 1987, but he became especially important on the diplomatic front, based mainly in Qatar, which became the main hub for mediation with other countries, including Israel, Egypt, and the United States.
Operating outside Gaza allowed him to travel and coordinate between neighbouring countries without the constraints of the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Al-Hayya has also led Hamas’s delegations in mediated talks with Israel to try to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal.
Al-Hayya’s own family have suffered as a result of Israeli attacks: During the 2014 war, an Israeli strike destroyed the house of his eldest son, Osama, killing him, his wife, and three of their children, and during Tuesday’s attack, his son, Humam, was also killed.
But he stressed that the loss of any lives is tragic. “The blood of the leadership of the movement is like the blood of any Palestinian child,” he told Al Jazeera.
Zaher Jabarin is believed to also have been a target of Israel’s attack. He currently serves as the movement’s chief financial administrator.
Earlier in 1993, Israel arrested Jabarin and sentenced him to life imprisonment. He spent almost two decades in prison before being released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange.
Following his release, Jabarin rose quickly through Hamas ranks. He became head of the group’s financial bureau, managing and overseeing an extensive investment and funding network. He currently also heads Hamas in the occupied West Bank, and he is one of the five members of the leadership council.
The leaders assassinated during Israel’s attack in Qatar also include:
The sixth person killed, according to Qatar, was Corporal Bader Saad Mohammed al-Humaidi al-Dosari, a member of the Internal Security Force (Lekhwiya).
With many of Hamas’s leadership killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, the group formed a five-man leadership council – which includes al-Hayya and Jabarin – and also has a senior military figure in Gaza itself.
Izz al-Din al-Haddad
Al-Haddad became the most senior Hamas military leader in the Gaza Strip after Sinwar’s death. Israel considers him one of the masterminds behind October 7 and has placed him on its most-wanted list. He is not a member of the five-man leadership council.
Khaled Meshaal
Khaled Meshaal, 68, has been a senior political leader of Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement, since the 1990s. He became known when Israeli agents attempted to inject a slow-acting lethal chemical into his ear on a public street in Jordan, but the operation was botched, and the men were soon arrested. He is now based in Qatar, serving on the leadership council.
“It is true that in reality, there will be an entity or a state called Israel on the rest of Palestinian land,” Meshaal has said. “But I won’t deal with it in terms of recognising or admitting it.”
Mohammad Darwish
He is also based in Qatar, and is the nominal head of Hamas’s leadership council. According to reports, in early 2025, he met Turkiye’s President Erdogan and publicly endorsed the idea of a technocratic or national unity government for post-war Gaza.
Awadallah is a long-time Hamas leader. He is seen as one of Hamas’s original members and has held several important positions, including in its armed wing. Since the October 7 attacks, he has not spoken publicly or appeared in the media.
Washington, DC – Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader targeted for deportation by President Donald Trump, has met with lawmakers in Washington, DC.
The visit on Tuesday comes just more than a month after the 30-year-old, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was released from immigration custody in Louisiana.
“I’m here in Washington, DC, today to meet with lawmakers, with members of Congress, to demand the end of the US-funded genocide in Gaza, and also to demand accountability from Columbia University, from the Trump administration for their retaliation against my speech,” said Khalil in a video interview with the news agency Reuters.
“To be honest, I feel that this is my duty to continue advocating for Palestinians. This is what the Trump administration tried to do. They tried to silence me. But I’m here to say that we will continue to resist. We are not backing down.”
Khalil continues to face deportation under the Trump administration, which has relied on an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 in its attempts to expel international students involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Under the law, the secretary of state can expel a foreign national if their presence in the country is deemed to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”, although the standard for making that determination remains unclear.
I met with Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, who was imprisoned for 104 days by the Trump administration for opposing Netanyahu’s illegal & horrific war in Gaza. Outrageous.
We must not allow Trump to destroy the First Amendment & freedom to dissent. pic.twitter.com/2iaIi8dUWF
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 22, 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and immigration officials have repeatedly portrayed Khalil’s advocacy as anti-Jewish and supportive of Hamas, but they have failed to provide evidence backing those claims.
Lawyers for Khalil and three other students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration — Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Badar Khan Suri — have argued that their arrests trample on the constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
Several district judges have sided with that position in ordering the students’ release from custody as their cases proceed in immigration court.
Earlier this month, Khalil, who missed the birth of his son while detained, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging malicious prosecution, as well as false arrest and imprisonment. He is seeking $20m in damages or an apology from the government.
US Senator Bernie Sanders was among the lawmakers who met with Khalil on Tuesday.
“We must not allow Trump to destroy the First Amendment & freedom to dissent,” Sanders said in a post on the social media platform X, accompanied by a photo with Khalil.
Mahmoud Khalil is a kind, gentle soul who cares deeply about others’ humanity, and his abduction, detention, and ongoing persecution by the Trump Admin is egregious.
I am deeply relieved that he has been reunited with his wife and his infant son. Our meeting today was fortifying… pic.twitter.com/HgWWkTafPw
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) July 22, 2025
Khalil also met with Congress members Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, Troy Carter and Summer Lee.
“Mahmoud Khalil is a kind, gentle soul who cares deeply about others’ humanity, and his abduction, detention, and ongoing persecution by the Trump Admin is egregious,” Pressley wrote in a post on X.
“Our meeting today was fortifying and productive.”
In its own social media message on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security once again called Khalil a “terrorist sympathiser”, accusing him of anti-Jewish “hateful behavior and rhetoric”.
However, ahead of his release in June, federal Judge Michael Farbiarz said he had given the administration lawyers ample time to support the public statements made against Khalil. He said they failed to do so.
“The petitioner’s career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled,” Farbiarz wrote at the time. “This adds up to irreparable harm.”
July 11 (UPI) — Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for 104 days has filed a complaint against the administration of President Donald Trump for $20 million.
“It was a very, very dehumanizing experience, for someone who was not accused of any crime, whatsoever,” Khalil told CNN. He is a green card holder who had no formal criminal or civil charges against him.
His administrative complaint, which is a precursor to a federal lawsuit, alleges that he was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an anti-Semite. The U.S. government tried to deport him because of his leadership of campus protests at Columbia University.
His arrest felt like a kidnapping, he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. He was on his way home from dinner with his wife Noor Abdalla, who was pregnant at the time. Agents followed him into the lobby of his apartment building, and they threatened his wife with arrest if she didn’t separate from him, he said. The ICE agents did not have a warrant for the arrest.
The government held Khalil, 30, in an ICE facility in Louisiana, alleging he supports Hamas. The administration hasn’t shown any evidence of this, and Khalil’s legal team has rejected it.
“(The complaint) is just the first step of accountability, that this administration has to pay for what it’s doing against me or against anyone who opposes their fascist agenda,” Khalil told NBC News Thursday.
Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia, has said he either wants $20 million or an apology from the administration.
“My goal is not self-enrichment. I don’t want this money just because I need money. What I want is actual accountability. Real, real accountability against the injustices that happened against me with the malicious prosecutions that I was targeted for all this.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it acted properly.
“The Trump Administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews, and damages property,” DHS posted on X before his release in June. “An immigration judge has already vindicated this position. We expect a higher court to do the same.”
The complaint names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department. He filed it under the Federal Tort Claims Act. The immigration case against him continues in the courts.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is representing Khalil. It said he would use the money to “help others similarly targeted by the Trump administration and Columbia University.”
BOSTON — Plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s campaign of arresting and deporting college faculty and students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations spent the first few days of the trial showing how the crackdown silenced scholars and targeted more than 5,000 protesters.
The lawsuit, filed by several university associations, is one of the first against President Trump and members of his administration to go to trial. Plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge William Young to rule that the policy violates the 1st Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
The government argues that no such policy exists and that it is enforcing immigration laws legally to protect national security.
One of the key witnesses was Peter Hatch, who works for the Homeland Security Investigations unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over two days of testimony, Hatch told the court a “Tiger Team” was formed in March — after two executive orders that addressed terrorism and combating antisemitism — to investigate people who took part in the protests.
Hatch said the team received as many as 5,000 names of protesters and wrote reports on about 200 who had potentially violated U.S. law. The reports, several of which were shown in court Thursday, included biographical information, criminal history, travel history and affiliations with pro-Palestinian groups as well as press clips and social media posts on their activism or allegations of their affiliation with Hamas or other anti-Israel groups.
Until this year, Hatch said, he could not recall a student protester being referred for a visa revocation.
“It was anything that may relate to national security or public safety issues, things like: Were any of the protesters violent or inciting violence? I think that’s a clear, obvious one,” Hatch testified. “Were any of them supporting terrorist organizations? Were any of them involved in obstruction or unlawful activity in the protests?”
Among the report subjects were Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who was released last month after 104 days in federal immigration detention. Khalil has become a symbol of Trump’s clampdown on the protests.
Another was Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was released in May from a Louisiana facility. She spent six weeks in detention after she was arrested while walking on the street of a Boston suburb. She says she was illegally detained following an op-ed she cowrote last year criticizing the school’s response to the war in Gaza.
Hatch also acknowledged that most of the names came from Canary Mission, a group that says it documents people who “promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.” The right-wing Jewish group Betar was another source, he said.
Hatch said most of the leads were dropped when investigators could not find ties to protests and the investigations were not inspired by a new policy but rather a procedure in place at least since he took the job in 2019.
Weeks before Khalil’s arrest, a spokesperson for Betar told the Associated Press that the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities that it submitted to officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil’s visa.
The Department of Homeland Security said at the time that it was not working with Betar and refused to answer questions about how it was treating reports from outside groups.
In March, speculation grew that administration officials were using Canary Mission to identify and target student protesters. That’s when immigration agents arrested Ozturk.
Canary Mission has denied working with administration officials, while noting speculation that its reports led to that arrest and others.
While Canary Mission prides itself on outing anyone it labels as antisemitic, its leaders refuse to identify themselves and its operations are secretive. News reports and tax filings have linked the site to a nonprofit based in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. But journalists who have visited the group’s address, listed in documents filed with Israeli authorities, have found a locked and seemingly empty building.
In recent years, news organizations have reported that several wealthy Jewish Americans made cash contributions to support Canary Mission, disclosed in tax paperwork filed by their personal foundations. But most of the group’s funding remains opaque, funneled through a New York-based fund that acts as a conduit for Israeli causes.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs pressed a State Department official Friday over whether protests were grounds for revoking a student’s visa, repeatedly invoking several cables issued in response to Trump’s executive orders as examples of policy guidance.
But Maureen Smith, a senior advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said protest alone wasn’t a critical factor. She wasn’t asked specifically about pro-Palestinian protests.
“It’s a bit of a hypothetical question. We would need to look at all the facts of the case,” she said. “If it were a visa holder who engages in violent activity, whether it’s during a protest or not — if they were arrested for violent activity — that is something we would consider for possible visa revocation.”
Smith also said she didn’t think a student taking part in a nonviolent protest would be a problem but said it would be seen in a “negative light” if the protesters supported terrorism. She wasn’t asked to define what qualified as terrorism nor did she provide examples of what that would include.
The trial opened with Megan Hyska, a green card holder from Canada who is a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, detailing how efforts to deport Khalil and Ozturk prompted her to scale back her activism, which had included supporting student encampments and protesting in support of Palestinians.
“It became apparent to me, after I became aware of a couple of high-profile detentions of political activists, that my engaging in public political dissent would potentially endanger my immigration status,” Hyska said.
Nadje Al-Ali, a green card holder from Germany and professor at Brown University, said that after the arrests of Khalil and Ozturk, she canceled a planned research trip and a fellowship to Iraq and Lebanon, fearing that “stamps from those two countries would raise red flags” upon her return. She also declined to take part in anti-Trump protests and dropped plans to write an article that was to be a feminist critique of Hamas.
“I felt it was too risky,” Al-Ali said.
Casey writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Adam Geller in New York contributed to this report.
Mahmoud Khalil, a former student activist imprisoned for more than three months, has filed a wrongful detention claim against the administration of President Donald Trump, seeking $20m in damages.
Thursday’s court filings allege that the Trump administration smeared his reputation, maliciously prosecuted Khalil and unlawfully imprisoned him.
The claim names the United States Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of State as defendants.
In an interview with The Associated Press (AP), Khalil said he hopes his claim will show that the Trump administration cannot bully activists into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Thursday’s claim is likely to be the precursor to a full-fledged lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Khalil, who served as a spokesperson for the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, said he plans to use any money he receives from his claim to help other activists whose speech Trump has attempted to suppress.
He also told the AP he would accept an apology and a revision of the Trump administration’s deportation policies. Khalil himself continues to face deportation proceedings as a result of his activism.
Born to Palestinian parents in Damascus, Syria, Khalil was a face for the Palestinian solidarity movement in the US after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
United Nations experts and human rights groups have warned that Israel’s tactics in Gaza are “consistent with genocide”, and Columbia University became the epicentre for global, student-led protests.
“I’m one of the lucky ones who are able to advocate for the rights of Palestinians, the folks who are getting killed back in Palestine,” Khalil told Al Jazeera in May 2024.
But Trump campaigned for a second term on pledges to crack down on immigration to the US and stamp out the antiwar protests, which he described as anti-Semitic.
Upon taking office in January, Trump issued executive orders setting the stage for the removal of foreign nationals deemed to have “hostile attitudes” towards the US or who were accused of supporting “threats to our national security”.
One of the orders instructed federal authorities to take “actions to remove such aliens” from the US.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump wrote at the time. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
Khalil was the first major arrest in Trump’s crackdown on the student protesters. Video shot by his pregnant wife, Noor Abdalla, on March 8 shows plain-clothed immigration officers handcuffing Khalil and leading him out of his university apartment complex in New York City.
He was swiftly moved from New York to New Jersey and then to Louisiana, where he was held at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena ahead of his planned deportation.
Lawyers for Khalil, however, swiftly filed two challenges: one against his deportation and one against his detention, in what is called a habeas corpus petition.
Because of the swift and clandestine nature of his departure to Louisiana, Khalil’s lawyers have said they did not know where their client was in the initial days after his arrest. Khalil is a permanent US resident, and his wife a citizen.
To justify his deportation, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked a rarely used provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. That provision allows the secretary of state to remove any foreign nationals he believes to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”.
Khalil has not been charged with any crime. The US, however, is a close ally of Israel and has provided military support to its campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 57,762 people.
On March 9, shortly after Khalil’s arrest, the Department of Homeland Security also issued a statement accusing Khalil of anti-Semitism, citing Trump’s executive orders.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” the statement said. “ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security.”
Trump himself called Khalil a “Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student” and a “terrorist sympathizer”.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” the president wrote on social media. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
But Khalil and his legal team have accused the Trump administration of violating his constitutional rights to free speech.
Since Khalil’s arrest, other foreign students have been arrested too, including Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk, who was reportedly imprisoned for writing an opinion article in her student newspaper against Israel’s war.
On June 20, a judge in New Jersey ordered Khalil’s release. He missed the birth of his first child while incarcerated.
NEW YORK — On a recent afternoon, Mahmoud Khalil sat in his Manhattan apartment, cradling his 10-week-old son as he thought back to the pre-dawn hours spent pacing a frigid immigration jail in Louisiana, awaiting news of the child’s birth in New York.
For a moment, the outspoken Palestinian activist found himself uncharacteristically speechless.
“I cannot describe the pain of that night,” Khalil said finally, gazing down as the baby, Deen, cooed in his arms. “This is something I will never forgive.”
Now, weeks after regaining his freedom, Khalil is seeking restitution. On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the Trump administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his prominent role in campus protests.
The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.
It comes as the deportation case against Khalil, a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University, continues to wind its way through the immigration court system.
The goal, Khalil said, is to send a message that he won’t be intimidated into silence.
“They are abusing their power because they think they are untouchable,” Khalil said. “Unless they feel there is some sort of accountability, it will continue to go unchecked.”
Khalil plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he said he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
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.
A State Department spokesperson said its actions toward Khalil were fully supported by the law. Inquiries to the White House and ICE were not immediately returned.
The filing accuses President Trump and other officials of mounting a haphazard and illegal campaign to “terrorize him and his family,” beginning with Khalil’s March 8 arrest.
On that night, he said he was returning home from dinner with his wife, Noor Abdalla, when he was “effectively kidnapped” by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.
He was then whisked overnight to an immigration jail in Jena, La., a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.
Inside, Khalil said he was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights and fed “nearly inedible” food, causing him to lose 15 pounds. “I cannot remember a night when I didn’t go to sleep hungry,” Khalil recalled.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration publicly celebrated the arrest, promising to deport him and others whose protests against Israel it dubbed “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.”
Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terrorist group. “At some point, it becomes like reality TV,” Khalil said of the allegations. “It’s very absurd.”
A few weeks into his incarceration, Khalil was awoken by a fellow detainee, who pointed excitedly to his face on a jailhouse TV screen. A new memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Khalil hadn’t broken the law, but argued he should be deported for beliefs that could undermine U.S. foreign policy interests.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” Khalil said. “It’s as simple as that.”
By then, Khalil had become something of a celebrity in the 1,200-person lock-up. When not dealing with his own case, he hosted “office hours” for fellow immigrant detainees, leaning on his past experience working at a British embassy in Beirut to help others organize paperwork and find translators for their cases.
“I’m pretty good at bureaucracy,” Khalil said.
At night, they played Russian and Mexican card games, as Khalil listened to “one story after another from people who didn’t understand what’s happening to them.”
“This was one of the most heartbreaking moments,” he said. “People on the inside don’t know if they have any rights.”
On June 20, after 104 days in custody, Khalil was ordered released by a federal judge, who found the government’s efforts to remove him on foreign policy grounds were likely unconstitutional.
He now faces new allegations of misrepresenting personal details on his green card application. In a motion filed late Wednesday, attorneys for Khalil described those charges as baseless and retaliatory, urging a judge to dismiss them.
The weeks since his release, Khalil said, have brought moments of bliss and intense personal anguish.
Fearing harassment or possible arrest, he leaves the house less frequently, avoiding large crowds or late-night walks. But he lit up as he remembered watching Deen taking his first swim earlier in the week. “It was not very pleasant for him,” Khalil said, smiling.
“I’m trying as much as possible to make up for the time with my son and my wife,” he added. “As well thinking about my future and trying to comprehend this new reality.”
Part of that reality, he said, will be continuing his efforts to advocate against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. On the day after his arrest, he led a march through Manhattan, draped in a Palestinian flag — and flanked by security.
As he poured Deen’s milk into a bottle, Khalil considered whether he might’ve done anything differently had he known the personal cost of his activism.
“We could’ve communicated better. We could’ve built more bridges with more people,” he said. “But the core thing of opposing a genocide, I don’t think you can do that any differently. This is your moral imperative when you’re watching your people be slaughtered by the minute.”
Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.
Facing unrestricted free agency for the first time in his illustrious career, Khalil Mack could have chosen any team to chase his championship ambitions. Why did the star edge rusher choose to stick with a franchise that has never won the Super Bowl?
“Why not here?” the Chargers edge rusher wondered back.
Praising the leadership under coach Jim Harbaugh and general manager Joe Hortiz, the players on the roster and his familiarity with the franchise, Mack’s decision to return to the Chargers wasn’t that complicated at all.
“It was a no-brainer,” he said this week during Chargers minicamp in his first comments with local reporters since January.
In his last public comments, Mack was swirling in the disappointment of the Chargers’ wild-card loss to the Houston Texans. The 34-year-old flirted with retirement. For a former two-star recruit who went to Buffalo, Mack has little else to prove at the professional level. Nine Pro Bowl selections. Three All-Pro honors. The 2016 Associated Press defensive player of the year.
But still no playoff wins.
“You’re chasing that feeling of wanting to win important games deep in the season,” said Mack, who has gone one-and-done in the postseason five times. “Being that I haven’t reached that point yet, I couldn’t give up on that dream and that goal for myself and for this franchise.”
Mired in their own postseason drought, the Chargers have not won a playoff game since the 2018 season. Their last two attempts flamed out spectacularly. The 27-point blown lead in Jan. 2023 was the largest in franchise history. Last year, quarterback Justin Herbert threw a career-high four interceptions against Houston.
Despite the jarring end, the Chargers’ surprising 11-6 regular-season record in the first year under Harbaugh positions the franchise well for the long-awaited breakthrough. Wanting to continue the momentum was a key hope for the offseason.
“l was begging and pleading with him to come back,” safety Derwin James Jr. said. “I just knew for him to come back like that, he really loves us and he really wants a shot at it again.”
Mack, who signed a reported one-year, $18 million deal, had six sacks and 39 tackles last season, a stark drop from his resurgent 2023 that featured a career-high 17 sacks and 75 tackles. Nursing a complicated groin injury, he missed a game for the first time in his Chargers tenure.
But entering his 12th season, Mack insists getting in top physical shape is the easy part. On Thursday, Harbaugh was shocked when reminded that Mack was 34 years old. Mack was working with Chargers executive director of player performance Ben Herbert for weeks before the team started their offseason regimen, defensive coordinator Jesse Minter said.
The workouts suddenly got so popular that one random weekday, Minter was stunned to see so many players that they could have held a defensive walk-through. Echoing Harbaugh, Minter called it the “Herb Effect.” It has Mack under its spell.
“Herb is a big deal,” Mack said. “He was a big part of that decision coming back here as well. Just knowing the mindset that he has and how he thinks about the body. It’s just the same approach and the same mindset that I have when I train by myself or with anybody else. I want to be a machine. I want to be as solid as possible, as strong as possible. Move people easy. And this program is all of that.”
For the first time in his Chargers tenure, Mack is without running mate Joey Bosa, who was cut in a salary-saving move. After three injury-riddled seasons punctuated his nine-year Chargers career, Bosa signed with the Buffalo Bills.
It’s weird without his former teammate, Mack said. He recently texted Bosa about how different the edge rusher room felt without Bosa breaking the silence with awkward jokes. They will at least reunite at Bosa’s wedding next year.
Bosa’s departure opens the door for third-year edge rusher Tuli Tuipulotu to step into a starring role. The USC alumnus started 20 games in the last two seasons as Bosa struggled with injuries and had a career-best 8 1/2 sacks last season.
“Tuli is a special player, man,” Mack said. “I’ve been saying that ever since he stepped foot into the building, what, three years ago now. … It’s not going to be no surprise to me when he’s a 10, 12 sack guy this year.”
The Chargers drafted SEC defensive player of the year Kyle Kennard in the fourth round to bolster the edge room that also includes 32-year-old Bud Dupree.
Mack’s return was one of the first offseason moves the Chargers announced, and while he could have waited longer to entertain options from other teams as an unrestricted free agent, he chose not to linger on the market. Balancing financial decisions with his career and family, Mack kept a single focus.
“It’s just not wanting to give up on that goal and that ambition that I had ever since I had stepped in the league,” Mack said. “I knew I wanted to play in important games and win a Super Bowl at least.”
After missing organized team activities while waiting for a contract extension, star left tackle Rashawn Slater returned to mandatory minicamp this week with no concerns about the status of his deal approaching the season.
“Realistically speaking, I’ve known for a long time it’s how these things go,” Slater said Thursday on the final day of minicamp of getting an extension done before the season. “It’s not something that’s bothered me. It’s just the business of football, so I have full confidence.”
In 2025, Slater would play on a fifth-year option due to pay him about $19 million. The left tackle coming off his second Pro Bowl selection was rated the second-best tackle last year, according to Pro Football Focus.
Many teammates were at the Chargers practice facility during organized team activities, but Slater continued his routine in Texas, where he works with Duke Manyweather, the top private offensive line coach among the NFL’s best. Despite not working with the Chargers strength staff, Slater was more than prepared upon his return. The offensive lineman passed the conditioning test, and Harbaugh said Slater reported it was “too easy.”
But Slater wanted to correct the record.
“I didn’t say ‘too easy,’” he said Thursday. “I just said it was ‘easy.’ I’m not trying to rub it in anybody’s face.”
See the moment former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, who was held for 100 days in a US detention centre, was greeted by supporters after his release from custody. Khalil vowed to continue protesting US complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Published On 22 Jun 202522 Jun 2025
Former Columbia University student was released from a detention centre on Friday after being held for more than three months.
Former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil has pledged to continue protesting Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as the United States’s support for Israel’s military operations.
Khalil, who was released on Friday night after being detained for more than three months at a detention centre, told reporters at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport on Saturday that the government was funding “this [Gaza] genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide”.
“This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine,” he said.
“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human.”
Born in Syria to Palestinian parents, Khalil, 30, was arrested by immigration agents at his university residence in March and swiftly became the image for President Donald Trump’s harsh crackdown on pro-Palestine student protesters and their possible deportation in the name of alleged anti-Semitism.
The government has claimed that the grounds to detain and deport Khalil, a legal US citizen, were that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.
But District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it was “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal US resident who was unlikely to flee and had not been accused of any violence.
Under the terms of his release, Khalil is not allowed to leave the country except for “self-deportation” and faces restrictions on where he can go in the US.
The government condemned the decision to release Khalil and filed a notice that it was appealing the decision.
CONCORD, N.H. — A Palestinian activist who was detained for more than three months pushed his infant son’s stroller with one hand and pumped his fist in the air with the other as supporters welcomed him home Saturday.
Mahmoud Khalil greeted friends and spoke briefly to reporters Saturday at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey a day after a judge ordered his release from a federal immigration facility in Louisiana. The former Columbia University graduate student, a symbol of President Trump’s clampdown on campus protests, vowed to continue protesting Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
“The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,” he said. “This is why I will continue to protest with every one of you. Not only if they threaten me with detention. Even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine.”
Khalil, a legal U.S. resident whose wife gave birth during his 104 days of detention, said he also will speak up for the immigrants he left behind in the detention center.
“Whether you are a citizen, an immigrant, anyone in this land, you’re not illegal. That doesn’t make you less of a human,” he said.
The 30-year-old international affairs student wasn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. However, the Trump administration has said noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the U.S. for expressing views it deems to be antisemitic or “pro-Hamas,” referring to the Palestinian militant group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence. The government filed notice Friday evening that it is appealing Khalil’s release.
Joining Khalil at the airport, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said his detention violated the 1st Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”
“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” she said.
“The Trump administration knows that they are waging a losing legal battle,” Ocasio-Cortez added. “They are violating the law, and they know that they are violating the law.”
Ramer writes for the Associated Press.
Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was released after three months in immigration detention, following a judge’s ruling to free him amid growing backlash over Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Published On 21 Jun 202521 Jun 2025