Overview
- Khalil filed the 131–138 page civil‑rights suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, naming senior White House and Cabinet officials, the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar.
- The complaint says a Heritage Foundation plan called Project Esther and lists compiled by Canary Mission and Betar formed a 'public‑private partnership' that fed names to DHS and ICE for fast‑tracked arrests and deportation referrals.
- Khalil recalls being arrested by ICE in March 2025, held for 104 days in a Louisiana immigration facility, released by a federal judge and kept under active deportation proceedings that may reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
- His lawyers invoked the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 to allege unlawful conspiracy between government actors and private groups, and asked for injunctions to block reliance on the challenged evidence plus compensatory and punitive damages.
- The White House defended its immigration authority and said Khalil misrepresented his visa application while the named private groups have not issued substantive responses and the suit could force disclosure of internal communications.