Ex-Columbia Student Files $20 Million Claim Over ICE Detention
Former Columbia Univrsity student Mahmoud Khalil speaks to the press as he arrives at Newark airport in Newark, New Jersey, on June 21.
Photographer: Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty ImagesMahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student detained for more than three months, has filed a claim seeking $20 million in damages from the US, arguing he was wrongly imprisoned because of support for pro-Palestinian causes on campus.
His lawyers argued in a letter to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security Thursday that Khalil was “deprived of his liberty” as part of a “broader campaign to deport campus protesters.” Khalil was released from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana last month after a US judge ordered him freed.