Badar Khan Suri: U.S. judge prevents deportation of Indian researchers in custody on alleged relationship with Hamas
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University in the U.S. capital, was detained because of growing fears of research and freedom of expression in academia, and Donald Trump’s new term is challenging a two-month challenge.
Surry’s lawyers demanded his release and condemned the arrests as “targeted, retaliatory detention” designed to “silence, or at least restrict and calm, his speeches” and other speeches “that explicitly support Palestinian rights.”
Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District Court of Virginia ordered Suri “not to evacuate from the United States unless and before the court issued the contrary order.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also filed an emergency motion to stop deportation, saying Suri was held in an immigration detention center in Louisiana.
“Riping someone from their family and family, depriving them of immigration status and detaining them entirely on political views is President Trump’s clear attempt to silence,” said Sophia Gregg, an immigration rights lawyer at ACLU. “It’s obviously unconstitutional.” On Wednesday, the French government denied French space scientists intending to attend a Houston meeting after officials searched his smartphone and found information about “hate” against U.S. policy.
“Dr. Khan Suri is an Indian national who was granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research in peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Georgetown University said in a statement.
“We don’t know that he is engaged in any illegal activities and have no reason to receive his detention.”
“None of Secretary of State Marco Rubio claims that Mr. Surry committed any crime or did violate any law,” his lawyer said in the application filed in the court.
The document accused the U.S. government of detaining Surry “based on his family connections and constitutionally protected freedom of speech.”
Compatriots arrested
Suri, a researcher at the Alwaleed bin talal Muslim Christian Understanding Center in Georgetown, was arrested Monday at his home in Arlington, Virginia, reported Politico.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said on X that Surry was a “diplomatous student at Georgetown University who actively spreads Hamas propaganda and promotes anti-Semitism on social media.”
McLaughlin accused him of “having close ties with known or suspected terrorists with senior Hamas advisers.”
She added that the State Department believes that researchers will be deported under the immigration law, which allows deportation if the visa holder’s presence in the United States decides to threaten U.S. foreign policy.
Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in the United States.
Georgetown University said it supports “the freedom and right of community members to openly inquire, deliberate and debate even if the basic idea can be difficult, controversial or offensive”.
Politico cited a petition from Suri’s lawyer, reporting that Suri’s wife is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and the couple thinks they are targeting because the government doubts they oppose U.S. policy to Israel.
