Court bars deporting Georgetown University Indian researcher

Badar Khan Suri has denied charges of “spreading Hamas propaganda” and having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist”

By Arun Kumar

A US court has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University who was detained by immigration authorities earlier this week on charges of “spreading Hamas propaganda” and having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist.”

Suri is a postdoctoral fellow studying and teaching at the prestigious Washington DC institution on a student visa. His lawyer has denied the allegation in a court filing saying that his client was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.”

READ: Rutgers declines to add caste as separate discrimination category (January 17th, 2025) 

In an order on Thursday, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”

In a sworn statement, his wife Mapheze Saleh said the detention “has completely upended our lives” and appealed to the court to allow Suri to return home to his family. “Our children are in desperate need of their father and miss him dearly,” she said. “As a mother of three children, I desperately need his support to take care of them and me.”

Suri was arrested outside his home in northern Virginia on Monday night by masked immigration agents, according to legal filings, CBS News reported. He was told the agents were with DHS, the filings say, and they informed him the government had revoked his visa and he was now facing expulsion from the country.

Suri was taken to Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana where he is being held, according to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Suri’s court filings allege that he and his wife Mapheze Saleh – a US citizen of Palestinian descent – had “long been doxxed and smeared” online by an “anonymously-run blacklisting site.”

A spokesman for Georgetown University said Suri had been “granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The institution was “not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”

“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,” the spokesman said. “We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at DHS, said on X that Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” She accused him of having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas” without providing any further detail.

Suri’s father-in-law is a former adviser to killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Washington Post and New York Times reported.

In her court statement, Saleh said her father lived in the US for nearly 20 years while pursuing a master’s and PhD. “Afterward, he served as political advisor to the Prime Minister of Gaza and as the deputy of foreign affairs in Gaza,” she said.

Saleh said he left the Gaza government in 2010 and “started the House of Wisdom in 2011 to encourage peace and conflict resolution in Gaza.”

In her post on X, McLaughlin said Secretary of State Marco Rubio “issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable.”