Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent leaders of US pro-Palestinian campus protests, sued the Trump administration on Thursday for $20 million over his arrest and detention by immigration agents, AFP reports.

“The administration carried out its illegal plan to arrest, detain, and deport Mr. Khalil ‘in a manner calculated to terrorize him and his family,’ the claim says,” according to the Center for Constitutional Rights which is backing Khalil.

Khalil suffered “severe emotional distress, economic hardship (and) damage to his reputation,” the claim adds.

Khalil called the lawsuit a “first step towards accountability.”

“Nothing can restore the 104 days stolen from me. The trauma, the separation from my wife, the birth of my first child that I was forced to miss,” he said in the statement.

“There must be accountability for political retaliation and abuse of power.” Khalil has previously shared his “horrendous” experience in detention, where he “shared a dorm with over 70 men, absolutely no privacy, lights on all the time.”