Mahmoud Khalil Uses Ku Klux Klan Act to Sue Trump Officials, Pro-Israel Groups

Mahmoud Khalil Uses Ku Klux Klan Act to Sue Trump Officials, Pro-Israel Groups

Notorious anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a lawsuit against Trump administration officials and pro-Israel organizations.

The former Columbia University graduate student organized and carried out the anti-Israel protests at the school in 2024.

Khalil cited 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 (“KKK Act”), and § 1986 in his complaint.

Yes, Khalil claims that these people and organizations carried “out a conspiracy to single out Mr. Khalil and other non-citizen Palestinians and their supporters for arrest, detention, and deportation, as punishment for their support of Palestinian rights.”

The Trump officials:

• Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio
• DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin
• Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche
• Former DHS Secretary Todd Blanche

Organizations:

• Heritage Foundation
• Betar Zionist Organization
• Betar Zionist Movement
• Betar World
• Canary Mission

In March 2025, ICE detained Khalil amid plans to revoke his student visa. Rubio later defended revoking student visas: “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

In the lawsuit, Khalil alleges Victoria Coates and Robert Greenway, leaders at Heritage, organized Project Esther, which he describes as the “blueprint for the conspiracy.” Um, okay:

The Blueprint was a document that described the plan to identify and target pro-Palestinian, non-citizen students and scholars, who would then be arrested and deported by the federal defendant participants in the conspiracy. As agreed under this plan, the Betar Defendants and Canary Mission Defendants, who have for years both been steeped in anti-Palestinian animus and vitriol, selected the targets of the conspiracy—certain Palestinians and their supporters, including Mr. Khalil—for federal officials to punish, after doxxing and publicly smearing them as antisemitic and supportive of terrorism. They boasted of their role in Mr. Khalil’s arrest and detention to maximize the speech-chilling goals of the conspiracy. These private individual and organizational co-conspirators are collectively referred to as “Private Defendants.”

Well, let’s review, dude. You and your minions spread terror across Columbia and other schools, terrorized students, and vandalized buildings.

Khalil mentioned his deportation fight in the lawsuit, too, which is still ongoing. He’ll likely ask the Supreme Court to block his deportation even though immigration judges have ordered him to leave the country.

Plus, after reading the lawsuit, it seems Khalil has more of a problem with the organizations because the connection between the Trump officials and Project Esther is not clear. Even The New York Times admits it:

Mr. Khalil’s lawsuit asserts that Ms. Coates and Mr. Greenway worked on Project Esther with Mr. Miller, who overlapped with them during the president’s first term. But no explicit connection between Mr. Miller and Project Esther has been reported. And while Mr. Khalil’s lawsuit names other top administration officials, including the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and Mr. Rubio, it was not clear exactly how he might show that they played an active role in any conspiracy.

This is where it can get messy for Khalil because he must “provide some factual basis supporting a meeting of the minds, such that defendants entered into an agreement, express or tacit, to achieve the unlawful end.” The evidence can be circumstantial, though.

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