Georgetown University researcher from India detained by immigration authorities, lawyer says

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Federal immigration authorities on Monday night detained a Georgetown University fellow in the United States legally on a student visa, according to the researcher’s lawyer, who promptly filed a lawsuit petitioning for his immediate release.

Indian national Badar Khan Suri was detained outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, by Department of Homeland Security agents, his attorneys told The Washington Post. Suri was then brought to a holding facility in central Virginia before being taken to Alexandria, Louisiana, where he is now awaiting a date in immigration court, one of the lawyers, Hassan Ahmad, said.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin alleged on X that Suri was spreading “Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” She further alleged that Suri had connection to a senior adviser to Hamas. Ahmad said he is innocent.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

“Seeing our government abduct and jail another innocent person is beyond contemptible,” Ahmad said Wednesday night. “And 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 detainment comes a week after Department of Homeland Security agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian protest leader at Columbia University and green-card holder who also was held in Louisiana. President Donald Trump had accused Khalil and other pro-Palestinian activists of engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity,” but a judge temporarily blocked that deportation.

Federal officials have also ramped up arrests and detentions of other immigrants with legal statuses in the United States as Trump tries to deliver on the broader immigration crackdown he promised during his campaign. First Amendment attorneys have called Khalil’s arrest a chilling, unconstitutional restriction of free speech.

McLaughlin said on X that Suri’s “activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable” based on the same section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that federal authorities have used to attempt to deport Khalil. That section of code allows the secretary of state to move to deport an individual if they have “reasonable grounds” to believe that the person’s presence in the United States could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”

McLaughlin also said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio made such a determination in Suri’s case on March 15.

Politico previously reported the news of the detainment.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When asked for comment, a DHS spokesperson pointed to McLaughlin’s post on X.

In a statement, Georgetown spokesperson Meghan Dubyak said Suri was “duly granted a visa” to the United States to continue his research on peace-building in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the university expects the “legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” she 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.”

According to his Georgetown biography, Suri is a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Foreign Service examining what makes cooperation more difficult among religiously diverse societies – and what can be done to solve those difficulties. He has traveled across conflict zones in India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Middle East. He wrote his 2020 doctoral thesis at a college in India on state-building in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He was in the United States on a J-1 visa, which is intended for foreign students to obtain academic training in the United States on an exchange program. The father of young children is being held by ICE in Louisiana.

According to Politico, Ahmad argued in the court filing – which is not accessible on the online court docket – that Suri was detained because of his wife’s Palestinian heritage and the couple’s political beliefs about U.S.-Israel policy.

When reached by phone, Suri’s wife referred a Washington Post reporter to his lawyer.

Nermeen Arastu, another of Suri’s attorneys, called Suri’s detainment “part of the Trump regime’s broader racist attacks on immigrant communities. No one, citizen or noncitizen, should have to live in terror from being taken away from his family.”

Related posts:

US immigration agents arrest Palestinian student protester at Columbia University in Trump crackdown Can a green-card holder be deported? What to know as student is arrested Maryland man pleads guilty to plotting wife’s murder, getting her arrested as terrorist Protesters occupy Trump Tower following arrest of Columbia student