According to the student’s lawyer on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump’s government has arrested an Indian man enrolled in Washington’s Georgetown University and is trying to deport him after determining he compromises US foreign policy.
According to a statement it provided to Fox News, the US Department of Homeland Security accused Badar Khan Suri of links to Hamas and claimed he had disseminated anti-Semitism and group propaganda on social media.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller later released the DHS statement to Fox News, which omitted any evidence. Suri’s actions, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “rendered him deportable.”
Suri, married to an American citizen and living in the US on a student visa, has been arrested in Alexandria, Louisiana and is awaiting a court date in immigration court, according to his lawyer.
Monday night, federal authorities apprehended him outside his Rosslyn, Virginia, house.
The matter arises as Trump works to deport immigrants who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s invasion of Gaza following an October 2023 strike.
Civil rights and immigrant advocacy organizations who charge Trump’s government of unfairly targeting political critics have erupted in protest at his policies.
Attached to Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Politico first broke news about his detention.
Suri’s attorney emailed “If an accomplished scholar who focuses on conflict resolution is whom the government decides is bad for foreign policy, then perhaps the problem is with the government, not the scholar.”
According to a Georgetown University spokesman, Suri’s incarceration was not explained and the university was not aware of Suri participating in any criminal activities.
Said his attorney, Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is US citizen.
The Georgetown University website states Saleh is from Gaza; she has worked with the foreign ministry there and written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets. The attorney pointed out that Saleh had not been arrested.
According to the Georgetown University website, Suri herself has a PhD in peace and conflict studies from an Indian university and is teaching a program this semester on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia.”
Over his involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, the Trump administration detained and aimed to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil earlier this month. Khalil is contesting his custody in court.
Trump, lacking proof, has charged Khalil of aiding Hamas. According to Khalil’s legal team, he has no ties to Hamas, the US labels as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Trump has claimed anti-Semitic demonstrators from pro-Palestinian backgrounds.
Some Jewish groups among others that support Palestinian rights claim that their condemnation of Israel’s attack on Gaza and their support of Palestinian rights are falsely mixed with anti-Semitism by their detractors.
Judge orders Mahmoud Khalil to stay in US for now.
On Wednesday, a US judge decided Khalil has to stay in the US temporarily but sent his challenge to the validity of his detention for his attendance in pro-Palestinian demonstrations to a court in New Jersey.
Although Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman rejected a Trump government attempt to dismiss the case, he agreed with the Justice Department that he lacked jurisdiction since Khalil was detained in New Jersey at the time his lawyers first objected to his detention in New York.
The New Jersey court will now decide on Khalil’s attempts to declare his arrest unlawful as well as on his release on bond or move-through action. According to Khalil’s lawyers, his American citizen wife Noor Abdallah cannot visit him in Louisiana, where he is presently being kept, as she is eight months pregnant with their first child.
In a statement on Wednesday, Khalil’s attorney Samah Sisay alleged the government relocated him to Louisiana in order to evade having the matter adjudicated in New York or New Jersey.
“Khalil should be free and home with his wife waiting on the birth of their first child, and we will continue to do everything possible to make that happen,” Sisay added.
