An Indian researcher at Georgetown University is facing deportation, in part due to his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian,” amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists accused of criticizing and acting out against U.S. foreign policy.
Badar Khan Suri was deemed “deportable” for “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. She did not provide any further details or evidence to support the claims, all of which the scholar has since denied.
Suri was detained Monday night at his home in Rosslyn, Va. He’s currently being held in Louisiana while he awaits his day in immigration court, according to his lawyer, Hassan Ahmad. The detention facility is more than 1,000 miles away from his family, something that’s “plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr. Suri’s protected speech,” the attorney added.
“The Trump administration has openly expressed its intention to weaponize immigration law to punish noncitizens whose views are deemed critical of U.S. policy as it relates to Israel,” Ahmad wrote in a recent court filing.
He further contended that Suri, who’s married to a Palestinian American, was targeted because of his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef. He previously served as an adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader who was assassinated last year.
According to the New York Times, Yousef left his post more than a decade ago and has spoken out against the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, part of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. The university said his areas of interest include religion, violence and peace processes in South Asia and the Middle East. He’d been teaching a course on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” prior to his detainment.
Suri was “duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” university officials said in a statement.
“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the school said. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”
Ahmad also noted that Suri has no criminal record. The attorney said federal authorities have failed to provide evidence suggesting his client has committed any crimes and that his detention is a violation of his free speech and due process rights.
Suri’s detainment comes after Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained earlier this month over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. He is also fighting deportation.