Exclusive: DHS civil rights office opened investigation into Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest days before office was dissolved

DHS’s oversight arm opened an investigation into the controversial arrest of Mahmoud Khalil only days before officials working for that office were placed on administrative leave.

The Department of Homeland Security’s oversight arm opened an investigation into the controversial arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil only days before officials working for that office were placed on administrative leave, according to a whistleblower disclosure exclusively obtained by CNN. It’s an example, according to whistleblowers, of the type of work that is now paused after the department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties was dissolved in late March. The elimination of the office, which had about 150 employees, came around the same time that civil rights offices were similarly shuttered or severely reduced within the departments of Defense, Justice and Education. When the DHS office was closed, it had about 550 open investigations — ranging from accusations against FEMA personnel skipping over the homes of Trump supporters during disaster-relief work, poor conditions in immigrant detention, more than two dozen open cases of alleged sexual abuse and the high-profile arrest of Khalil, according to the disclosure sent to key congressional committees on behalf of whistleblowers by the Government Accountability Project, a non-partisan, nonprofit whistleblower support organization. In early March, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested and detained Khalil, a negotiator for pro-Palestinian student protestors in talks with Columbia University’s administration over last spring’s contentious campus encampment. He was one of several foreign nationals who were accused by the Trump administration of being a threat to national security due to purported ties to terrorist organizations. His attorneys have disputed that characterization, and they have sparred with the government over whether a warrant was needed to arrest him. “In the days before March 21, 2025, CRCL opened an investigation into due process concerns raised by Khalil’s arrest and his attempted removal from the United States,” according to the DHS whistleblower disclosure. That appears to be the extent of the investigation. The disclosure doesn’t suggest that it was the reason for the office’s disbanding. CNN reached out to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS has previously described the office as acting as an internal roadblock to the agency’s immigration-enforcement mission.