Columbia university graduate Mahmoud Khalil is seeking damages from the US government, weeks after spending more than 100 days in immigration detention for participating in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
On Thursday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20m (£14.7m) in damages alleging false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and being smeared as an antisemite.
Mr Khalil was arrested by immigration agents on 8 March. The US government wants to deport him, arguing his activism is detrimental to its foreign policy interests.
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A federal judge ruled in late June that Mr Khalil was not a flight risk or threat to his community and could be released as his immigration proceedings continue.
In the claim, his lawyers argue Mr Khalil was subject to false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent actions which led to emotional distress.
They said these “harms” are the result of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s determination that Mr Khalil “posed serious and adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling US foreign policy interest”.
They argued that Rubio’s determination was used to target non-citizens who “participated in protests of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the United States’ support for it”.
Israel denies the accusations of genocide in the Palestinian enclave.
In a statement carried by the Associated Press (AP) Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said Mr Khalil’s claim was “absurd”, and accused him of “hateful behavior and rhetoric” that threatened Jewish students.
The BBC has reached out to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.
In an AP interview , Mr Khalil said he was seeking accountability from the Trump administration for his detention and “for the chilling effect that such actions had on core community, the group supporting Palestine, on students in general, and just on the American public as well”.
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He said he is seeking either the $20m or an official apology from the Trump administration “for the wrongdoings that they did against me and against others”.
“What they did to me is they tried something, it failed, but still the harm is already there. So unless they feel that there’s some sort of accountability for that, they will continue to go unchecked,” he continued.
Mr Khalil, a permanent US resident, was arrested in early March from his home in New York in front of his pregnant wife.
He was held in an immigration facility in Louisiana for three months before a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration could no longer detain or deport him. On 20 June, a judge ruled Mr Khalil must be released.
He was unable to be there for the birth of his first child, saying that is “something I will never forgive”.
Mr Khalil, a Palestinian refugee raised in Syria, was lead student negotiator during pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York City last year.
Several others who criticised Israel’s war in Gaza, including Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk and Indian scholar Badar Khan Suri were also detained. They have since been released.