US government cannot deport Georgetown scholar until court rules, judge orders

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered immigration officials not to deport a Georgetown scholar who was detained by the Trump Administration and accused of spreading Hamas propaganda in the latest battle over speech on U.S. college campuses.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered that Indian national Badar Khan Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order.”

Suri’s attorney wrote in an earlier court filing that Suri was targeted because of his social media posts and his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech.”

“Dr. Suri is an academic, not an activist," his attorney Hassan Ahmad wrote in a court filing on Thursday. “But he spoke out on social media about his views on the Israel-Gaza war. Even more so, his wife is an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and the violence it has perpetrated against Palestinians.”

Suri's attorney argued that federal authorities have provided no evidence that he’s committed any crimes and that his detention violates his free speech and due process rights. Suri, who has no criminal record, holds a visa authorizing him to be in the U.S. as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a U.S. citizen, according to the motion.

“The Trump Administration has openly expressed its intention to weaponize immigration law to punish noncitizens whose views are deemed critical of U.S. policy as it relates to Israel,” Suri's attorney wrote.

Suri was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and determined to be deportable by the Secretary of State’s office, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said late Wednesday on the social platform X. Suri’s case was first reported by Politico.

Suri was arrested Monday night outside of his Virginia home, where he lives with his wife and three children, who are between the ages of 5 and 9, according to the filing by his lawyer.

Masked agents “refused to tell him the basis for the arrest, handcuffed him, and forced him into an unmarked black SUV,” Suri's lawyer wrote. “Dr. Suri’s wife quickly arrived on the scene and begged for answers; the agents only disclosed that they were from Homeland Security, the government was revoking Dr. Suri’s visa, and he would be detained in Chantilly.”

Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, “have long been doxxed and smeared,” Suri's lawyer wrote, while she said in a separate statement to the court that a website had "claimed falsely that my husband and I have ‘ties to Hamas.’"

“I feel completely unsafe and can’t stop looking out the door, terrified that someone else will come and take me and the children away as well,” she said in her statement.

Saleh was born in Missouri but spent much of her life in Gaza after age five, according to court filings. She and Suri married in New Delhi, India, in 2013 and lived there before moving to the U.S.; he came in 2022 and she and their children joined him the following year.

Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, told The Associated Press that Suri was intensely focused on teaching and research that centered on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia.

Suri felt strong solidarity and sympathy for Palestinians, but was not outwardly political on campus, the professor said.

“We’ve organized dozens of events since Oc. 7th, when the Israel-Gaza war began, and I don’t recall seeing him in any of those events,” said Hashemi, who directs the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where Suri is a post-doctoral fellow. “That’s not who he was.”

Before his arrest, Suri and his wife had been targets of right-wing campus groups, in part because Saleh's father is Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to Hamas, Hashemi said.

Yousef confirmed to The New York Times that Suri is his son-in-law, adding that Suri wasn't involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas.

Yousef, who has publicly criticized the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, told the newspaper that he left his position in the Hamas-run government in Gaza more than a decade ago and does not hold a senior position with the militant group.

Georgetown's Alwaleed Center said in a statement that Suri's arrest was part of a "campaign by the Trump Administration to destroy higher education in the United States and punish their political opponents.”

Suri was later taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to a government website. His lawyers are seeking his immediate release and to halt deportation proceedings through their habeas motion filed Tuesday against the Trump administration.

Suri’s detention more than 1,000 miles (about 1,600 kilometers) away from his family and attorney is “plainly intended as retaliation and punishment for Mr. Suri’s protected speech,” his attorney added.

Separately, Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record, was detained earlier this month over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and is fighting deportation efforts in federal court. And Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist who previously worked and lived in Rhode Island, was deported over the weekend despite having a U.S. visa.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, whose district includes the county where Suri was detained, said in a Thursday statement that the scholar’s detention was illegal, urging the court to consider Suri’s case.

“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 in a statement. “Mr. Suri and his family are unfortunately the latest victim of President Trump’s assault on the freedom of speech.”

Suri’s lawyers say he hopes to become a university professor. A Georgetown webpage said that he earned a doctorate in India while studying efforts to introduce democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, and he has traveled extensively in conflict zones in several countries.

The university said in a statement Thursday that Suri was “duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

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

The U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement detainee locator website lists Suri as being in the custody of immigration officials at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana.

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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.