Detained for more than 100 days without charge, and with the threat of deportation looming over him, Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil was convinced he would eventually prevail.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Khalil, who is now back with his young family, describes the months languishing in a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center, and the pain of being denied permission to be present at his son’s birth.

“It was a very, very dehumanizing experience, for someone who was not accused of any crime, whatsoever,” said Khalil, a green card holder who had no formal criminal or civil charges brought against him.

His detention sparked outrage across the US.

On Thursday Khalil’s lawyers filed a claim against the Trump administration for $20 million in damages, alleging he was falsely imprisoned, prosecuted and portrayed as antisemitic as the government sought to deport him over his role in campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security in a statement called Khalil’s claim “absurd.”