Badar Khan Suri,a Georgetown researcher and Indian national, was arrested by federal immigration agents. File Photo courtesy Immigration and Customs Enforcement
March 20 (UPI) — The Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security sent masked agents to grab Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri from his home Monday for his social media posts. Suri was still in detention in Louisiana on Thursday.
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media,” Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin posted to X Wednesday.
“Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas.”
McLaughlin further said the Secretary of State “issued a determination” Saturday that “Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable” under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
His attorney has argued that Suri has been detained due to his wife Mapheze Saleh’s Palestinian heritage. She is an American citizen who had once worked for Al Jazeera and whose father, Ahmed Yousef, was purportedly a senior political advisor to Hamas.
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow on a student visa and has not been charged with a crime.
Masked federal agents arrived at his home and told him his visa had been revoked.
Georgetown University said in a statement, “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.”
Georgetown said it has not been informed why Suri was detained.
Suri is scheduled to go before an immigration judge in Texas in May, according to his attorney, Hassan Ahmad. He has no criminal record and has filed a federal court habeas corpus petition in a bid to be released from detention.
He added Suri was not involved in any political activism on behalf of Hamas.
Yousef told The New York Times he left his position in the Gaza Hamas-run government a decade ago and has no role with Hamas now.
Ahmad said Suri’s father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, is a former advisor to assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and that may be why Suri was taken into custody.
“Mr. Suri and his family are unfortunately the latest victim of President Trump’s assault on the freedom of speech.” Ahmed said. “Trump has made no effort to disguise the fact that the arrests of academics like Suri and Mahmoud Khalil is intended to have a chilling effect and discourage the free expression of political views which Trump dislikes.”
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in a statement that “Badar Khan Suri’s detention is a clear violation of his constitutional rights and must be released.
“The ‘justification’ given for these violations of Mr. Suri’s right to due process is another violation of the Constitution: a blatant attack on the First Amendment,” Beyer said.
Beyer added it’s another example of the Trump administration targeting academics like Mahmoud Khalil, who are legally in the United States to create a chilling effect on free speech.
“Mr. Suri is here lawfully and is not accused of a crime, yet he was surrounded outside the Northern Virginia home where he lives with his wife — an American citizen — and their children, arrested by masked authorities without explanation, disappeared, imprisoned, denied access to legal counsel and had his student visa revoked.”