News Agency PTI reported that U.S. immigration authorities have detained a postdoctoral fellow in India nationwide. The student was identified as Badar Khan Suri. His lawyers claimed he was punished “for his wife’s Palestinian legacy (a U.S. citizen) and because the government suspected that he and his wife opposed the U.S. foreign policy toward Israel,” as PTI said. He is a former student of Jamia Milia Islam in New Delhi.
It was less than a week after a self-appointed charge of a Colombian student from India supporting Hamas’ activities. Surry is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed bin talal talal Muslim Christian Understanding Center, located at the Edmund A. Walsh Diplomacy School at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
Suri is studying student visas and teaching, “in amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists who accused the administration of opposing U.S. foreign policy, federal immigration authorities have detained students.”
The report said the “masked agent” arrested Surry from outside his Virginia home on Monday night. His petition filed by his attorney, Hassan Ahmad, said he was taken to a Virginia facility and “is expected to be transferred to a Texas detention facility soon.” Politico reports that Surry’s lawyers have filed a lawsuit to demand his immediate release. “The agent identified himself as a job for the Department of Homeland Security and told him that the government had revoked his visa,” PTI said.
The report further notes that he was “deport lawsuits in deportation lawsuits” according to Suri’s petition, which had cited the government’s attempt to expel Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and law permanent resident arrested for his role in Columbia’s leading protest against Israel.
The petition says the couple “has been long been phased out and smeared” on the far-right website that runs anonymously, due to their support for Palestinian rights. The petition added that Surry’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, allegedly linked to Hamas, had worked for Al Jazeera.
The petition further states that Suri has no criminal record and is not charged with crime. Ahmed said he was unable to contact Suri as of Wednesday night. “We are trying to talk to him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmed said. “This is just another example of our government’s kidnapping of people in the way Khalil was kidnapped.”
According to his knowledge on the Georgetown University website, Surry completed his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Solutions in 2020. In a racially diverse society, and the challenges to project construction.
He travels extensively in conflict areas in India, Pakistan, Iran’s Balluchistan province, Turkey, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Lebanon and its southern regions, Egypt and Palestine. The Politico report quoted a statement from a Georgetown spokesman who said Surry was “an Indian national who was granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral study in peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We are not aware that he engages in any illegal activities and have received his reasons for detention. We support the rights of community members to be free, open inquiries, deliberations and debates, even if potential ideas can be difficult, controversial or offensive. We expect the legal system to be able to rule this situation fairly,” the spokesperson said. ”
Suri’s detention was less than a week after Columbia University’s Indian student Ranjani Srinivasan was revoked and involved in activities supporting Hamas for allegedly “advocating violence and terrorism.”
The Department of Homeland Security said Srinivasan had entered the U.S. on an F-1 student visa among his PhD in urban planning at Columbia University. It added that Srinivasan was “participated in the support of the terrorist group” Hamas.
The State Council revoked her visa on March 5. The Department of Homeland Security said it had obtained videos of Srinivasan using the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) home app and obtained self-exploitation on March 11.
(with PTI input)
