Mahmoud Khalil, the anti-Israel activist who led protests at Columbia University, filed a lawsuit Tuesday under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 against the Trump administration and several Jewish groups.

Khalil spent several months in a Louisiana detention center awaiting deportation before a judge ordered his release and another judge blocked his deportation while his case makes its way to the Supreme Court. He has alleged that officials in the Trump administration conspired with the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar USA to identify and “nominate” anti-Israel activists to be targeted for deportation. The lawsuit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House adviser Stephen Miller, former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“Today, I sued the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Miller, a Columbia affiliate, and others under the KKK Act. I will not stop fighting until everyone who willingly contributed to my missing the birth of my son—and 104 days of my life—answers for it,” Khalil posted on X.

“More actions will come soon,” he promised, adding that the lawsuit is not only about personal revenge but also to prevent what he claims is the silencing of anti-Israel activists.

“This lawsuit is about far more than what was done to me,” he wrote. “It is about a coordinated, ongoing plot to punish, silence, and intimidate everyone who dares to dissent and speak out for Palestinian liberation. We will hold them accountable.”

Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at the Lawfare Project, fired back at the use of the KKK Act in this way.

“That statute was written to stop armed conspiracies from terrorizing Black Americans out of their rights,” he wrote in a social media statement. “Khalil has aimed it at the Secretary of State for enforcing immigration law, and at Canary Mission and Betar, two Jewish civil rights groups whose offense was documenting antisemitism.”

Filitti noted the irony of using the KKK Act to punish people “who track Jew-hatred.”

“A Reconstruction civil rights law, pointed at the people who track Jew-hatred and at the government that moved to deport him,” he declared. “This is not a civil rights case. It is the template for lawfare.”

The Klan Act requires a conspiracy driven by invidious, class-based animus. Enforcing the immigration laws is not that. Cataloging antisemitism is not that. On the text, the case should not survive a motion to dismiss,” he concluded.