“I would never imagine in a million years to see a faculty member, a student who’s engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights, would be picked up by the state and thrown into jail,” a Georgetown colleague of Badar Khan Suri said after his arrest by ICE.
Members of the Georgetown University community and others were concerned and confused Thursday after a postdoctoral fellow was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday night.
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen in the U.S. on a student visa, was taken into custody in Rosslyn, his attorney said. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered immigration officials not to deport him.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered that Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”
Badar Khan Suri's arrest raises free speech concerns
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Court documents say masked agents detained Suri outside the home where he lives with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and their three children. The documents say the agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and that his visa was revoked.
News4 obtained a copy of a document Suri’s attorney filed to get him released from custody. The lawyer said Suri isn’t being accused of any crime and has a clean record.
The Assistant Department of Homeland Security secretary posted on X a claim that Suri was "actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media."
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In the court filing, Suri's attorney claimed he was targeted because his wife is Palestinian and previously criticized the Trump administration's foreign policy related to Israel.
News4 sat down with the director of the Georgetown center where Suri works. He said he’s worried about his colleague and President Donald Trump’s attack on free speech.
"I would never imagine in a million years to see a faculty member, a student who's engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights, would be picked up by the state and thrown into jail and then deported. That's what they do in Putin's Russia. That's what they do in Xi Jinping’s China. That's what they do in the Islamic Republic of Iran, not in the United States, at least until now,” said Nader Hashemi, director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.
Suri is working on a project that looks into potential causes that hinder cooperation among religiously diverse societies and possibilities to overcome those hindrances, Georgetown said.
Rep. Don Beyer issued a statement that said in part: “Badar Khan Suri’s detention is a clear violation of his constitutional rights, and he must be released. … Mr. Suri and his family are unfortunately the latest victim of President Trump’s assault on the freedom of speech.”
Suri is being held in Texas and has a deportation hearing scheduled for May. His attorney hopes Suri will be released from federal custody and the case against him will be moved to the U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
The Trump administration used a provision of immigration law that gives the U.S. secretary of state the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines the person could threaten U.S. foreign policy while living in the U.S.
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