17 hours ago

Pro-Palestinian Georgetown University academic held by immigration agents

Donald Trump’s immigration authorities arrested an Indian academic at Washington DC’s Georgetown University and are pushing to deport him as punishment for his wife’s Palestinian heritage and opposition to US-Israel policy, his attorney said.

Department of Homeland Security agents on Monday detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, saying that his visa was revoked. Suri’s attorney said that he was arrested on the same legal grounds as Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, according to Politico.

Suri was reportedly at a Louisiana detention facility as of Wednesday night. He was poised to be taken to a Texas detention center, per Politico.

Suri on Tuesday filed a legal petition for release; in court papers first reported by Politico, his attorney said that he did not have a criminal record, nor had he been charged with any crime.

The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Suri had ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and claimed he shared its propaganda and antisemitic content on social media, officials said in a statement to Fox News. This statement, which did not include any evidence, said that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, found that his activities “rendered him deportable”.

Suri’s attorney, Hassan Ahmad, said he had not been able to reach him since the arrest outside his Arlington, Virginia, home. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad told Politico. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”

Suri, who was teaching a course this spring on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia,” holds a doctorate in peace and conflict studies from a university in India, per Reuters. Ahmad said in court papers that Suri and his wife Mapheze Saleh, a US citizen, have “long been doxxed and smeared” on rightwing websites for their pro-Palestinian advocacy, Politico said.

According to a 2018 article about Suri and Saleh in the Hindustan Times, she is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas.

For at least one month before Suri’s arrest, various hardline pro-Israel social media accounts, as well as the Israel’s US embassy, highlighted his wife and father-in-law in posts on X. One 13 March missive, which showed a photo purporting to be Saleh, and one of her father, tagged US attorney general Pam Bondi.

Suri’s arrest came amid Trump’s efforts to expel foreign nationals who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack. Civil liberties groups have decried Trump’s actions as assaults on free speech and illegal targeting of political opponents.

Khalil, a Palestinian Columbia graduate and green card holder, faces deportation under a provision of immigration law that permits the US secretary of state to expel non-citizens if their presence in the country is deemed a threat to foreign policy. A Manhattan federal court judge ordered that Khalil remain in the US while his immigration case is pending and has transferred the proceedings to New Jersey.

Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed in a social media post that Rubio deemed Suri’s presence a threat to US foreign policy interests.

“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” McLaughlin said in a post on X. “The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).”

“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,” Suri’s lawyer said in an email reported by Reuters.

Nermeen Arastu, who is also on Suri’s legal team and teaches at City University of New York’s law school, told Drop Site that his arrest was part and parcel to Trump’s attack on critics.

“Each week families are torn apart by policies that weaponize immigration enforcement to silence dissent,” Arastu said. “Mr. Suri’s case is emblematic of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to suppress voices – citizens and non-citizens alike – who dare to speak out against governmental policies.”

A spokesperson for Georgetown said the university did not know of any alleged wrongdoing on Suri’s part and that they supported students and professors’ right to free expression. “Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the university 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.”

Trump has repeatedly characterized pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic. Those advocating for Palestine, among them some Jewish groups, contend that their criticism of Israel’s military efforts in Gaza and support for Palestinian rights – has wrongfully been cast as antisemitism by critics.