What we know about the case of detained Georgetown professor Badar Khan Suri

A federal judge has blocked immigration officials from deporting a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar who was detained by the Trump administration earlier this week.

In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Va., said Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national, can’t be removed from the U.S. “until the Court issues a contrary order.” Giles’ order stopped short of releasing Suri back to his Rosslyn, Va., home where his wife and three young children are still living. His lawyers are still working to get him released.

Suri is just the latest scholar to be detained or deported by the Trump administration for their support for Palestinian rights or for criticizing Israel for the war in Gaza. Just like the high-profile arrest of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, Suri is being accused by Department of Homeland Security officials of spreading Hamas propaganda.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said on X: “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.”

His lawyers deny this. Attorneys with the Virginia ACLU have said in court filings that the government is retaliating against Suri for his and his wife’s support for Palestinians and for the couple’s ties to Gaza.

“Ripping someone from their home and family, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent,” ACLU of Virginia Senior Immigrants’ Rights Attorney Sophia Gregg said in a statement on Suri’s case. “That is patently unconstitutional.”

A representative for DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here’s the latest on Suri’s case.

Who is Badar Khan Suri?

At the time of his arrest on Monday, Suri was teaching a course and attending Georgetown as a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, according to his bio on the school’s website.

He’s in the U.S. under a J-1 visa, which according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is for people who take part in approved programs of teaching, studying, training and research. In 2020, Suri completed his Ph.D. in Peace & Conflict Studies from the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia, a public research university in New Delhi.

In a statement calling for Suri’s release, Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center had strong words for the Trump administration.

“[Suri] has committed no crime. Like Mahmoud Khalil before him, he was arrested in the context of a campaign by the Trump Administration to destroy higher education in the United States and punish their political opponents,” the center said.

Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent and her father is Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to Hamas, according to the Associated Press. Yousef told The New York Times that his son-in-law wasn’t involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas. Yousef, for his part, has criticized the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and left his role in the Hamas-run government more than a decade ago, the Times said.

Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, also told the Associated Press that Suri was focused on teaching and wasn’t involved in political activism on the highly prestigious college campus.

Suri’s attorneys say he and Saleh have faced harassment and threats for speaking out in support of Palestinians and have been featured on sites dedicated to bullying and defaming academics and students involved in the pro-Palestine movement.

A photo of Salah and information about her, including her school and former employer is featured on an anonymously run website, Suri’s attorneys write in court filings. They said the site “maintains a blacklist of individuals perceived to support Palestinian rights and is infamous for bullying, slandering, and defaming academics and students.”

What happened?

Suri’s plight started March 17, when upon returning home following a Ramadan meal celebration, he was approached by masked federal agents who identified themselves as part of the Department of Homeland Security. They informed him that the government had revoked his visa.

“He is here legally. There was no ongoing issue with his visa,” Eden B. Heilman, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia, told NPR.

The agents quickly took him into custody in front of his wife, Heilman said. But there was never any real explanation to Suri or Saleh about where he was going, what was happening or why, Heilman says.

Suri was never charged with any crime. But in just under 72 hours, he has been moved from one immigration center to the next, eventually landing in Louisiana where he is currently held. Both the speed and obscure nature of Suri’s arrest “is really alarming,” Heilman said.

What is the government saying?

McLaughlin, the assistant secretary of DHS, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the determination to remove Suri on March 15, two days before he was arrested. She said on X that Rubio determined that Suri’s “activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).”

The Trump administration is using the same “rarely used” federal provision to attempt to remove Suri as they did in the case of Khalil, the former Columbia student, according to the professor’s lawyers.

This was done “… to retaliate against and punish noncitizens like Mr. Suri solely for their family ties to those who may have either expressed criticism of U.S. foreign policy as it relates to Israel, or who are perceived to hold such critical views imputed to them due to familial relationship.”

Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and and one of Khalil’s lawyers, said the use of this policy by the federal government is “largely unprecedented, save for ugly historical precedents, including the Red Scare and McCarthyism,” the Columbia Spectator reported.

Suri’s attorneys are currently working to get him relocated closer to his family, and legal representation, in Virginia, Heilman said.