Indian origin postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University, Badar Khan Suri, was arrested on Monday night for alleged ties with “Hamas terrorists.”
A federal judge on Thursday halted the deportation of a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University and ordered the officials to not deport him until the court changes its rule. Indian origin researcher, Badar Khan Suri, was arrested by officers who identified themselves as Department of Homeland Security agents and told him his visa had been revoked. US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered that Badar Khan Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary Department of Homeland Security took to X and said, Badar Khan Suri is said to have “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist.” Suri’s lawyers sought his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings through their habeas motion filed Tuesday against the Trump administration.
‘Targeted because of his wife’
Hassan Ahmad, Suri’s Virginia-based attorney, wrote in a court filing that Suri was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.” Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, “have long been doxxed and smeared,” the court filing stated. Critics have published Saleh’s photograph online along with information that includes her former employment with Al Jazeera and her birthplace in Gaza City “as support for her alleged ties with Hamas.”
Suri’s detention more than 1,600 km away from his family and attorney is “plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr Suri’s protected speech,” his attorney added.
Suri is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.
Alwaleed Center said in a statement that Suri’s arrest was part of a “campaign by the Trump Administration to destroy higher education in the United States and punish their political opponents.” Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, told The Associated Press that Suri was intensely focused on his research and teaching. He felt strong solidarity and sympathy for Palestinians, but was not outwardly political on campus.
(AP inputs)