What we know about the Georgetown scholar facing deportation for alleged terror ties and ‘Hamas propaganda’

(CNN) — Trump administration officials accuse Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri of being a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda and having close ties to a suspected or known terrorist.

But to his defenders, Khan Suri is an accomplished scholar whose research focuses on peacebuilding in the Middle East. Khan Suri’s attorney argues his client is being targeted in part because his wife is a Palestinian American.

The research fellow’s nighttime arrest and detention this week marks yet another controversial immigration enforcement action by the Trump administration at one of the preeminent universities in the United States.

Khan Suri’s legal team is challenging his detention in court, and on Thursday, a federal judge ruled he cannot be removed from the country while his petition is pending.

Here’s what we know:

The arrest

Khan Suri, an Indian national in the US for doctoral research at Georgetown, was arrested Monday night after his J-1 visa was revoked, according to his attorneys and the university.

Attorney Hassan Ahmad told CNN his client “was snatched away from his family” and has been held in a detention center in Louisiana since Tuesday. Ahmad called the judge’s order temporarily blocking deportation “the first due process Dr. Khan Suri has received.”

Immigration officers who arrested Khan Suri wore black masks and were “brandishing weapons,” according to Nermeen Arastu, an attorney on Khan Suri’s legal team and associate professor of immigration law at CUNY School of Law.

“ICE agents came in the night, took him captive, taking him from his wife and children,” Arastu told CNN. “This is every family’s worst nightmare.”

What US immigration authorities say

About two days after the arrest, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin alleged in a post on X that Khan Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” She also accused Khan Suri of having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

McLaughlin said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that “(Khan) Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable” under an obscure legal statute that gives the secretary of state authority to act if he or she believes a non-citizen would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

“No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason,” Rubio said in remarks to the press last week.

CNN has reached out to the DHS for further clarification, while the State Department declined CNN’s request for additional comment.

What Khan Suri’s family and attorneys say

The Georgetown scholar’s defense team denies the US government’s claims and argues that Khan Suri’s detainment is part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to clamp down on individuals “purportedly based on their participation in Palestine-related speech,” according to his court petition.

Ahmad argued in a court filing that Khan Suri was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech,” the Associated Press reported. She is an American citizen, according to the filing.

Khan Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is Palestinian, the detention petition notes, and a former employee of the Qatari-based news network Al Jazeera. A court declaration filed on Thursday by Saleh said she posted on social media to show her support for the people of Gaza after the start of the Israel-Gaza war.

Saleh notes in her declaration that she was born in the US and moved to Gaza at age 5. Her father, who lived in the US for two decades, served as political advisor to the Prime Minister of Gaza and as Deputy of Foreign Affairs in Gaza until 2010, the filing said.

In February, Saleh says she started to feel unsafe, as online websites falsely accused her of having ties to Hamas, according to her declaration. Court filings also said Saleh had been “smeared” by an online group that “spreads misinformation and seeks to discredit American Muslims.”

Court filings said Khan Suri met Saleh’s father on two occasions – once during a humanitarian visit to Gaza and a second time to ask for Saleh’s hand in marriage. The couple moved to India in 2013 and Badar never returned to Gaza, his wife’s declaration adds.

While the filing does not mention Saleh’s father by name, The New York Times reported that Ahmed Yousef – a former adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – confirmed in a voice message that he was Suri’s father-in-law.

Yousef told The New York Times that he had left his position with the Hamas-run government more than a decade ago, and that his son-in-law was not involved in any “political activism.”

CNN could not independently verify Yousef’s claims about Khan Suri’s activities.

When asked about Khan Suri’s father-in-law, Ahmad said, “I’m only aware of one, possibly two times, that he’s met his father-in-law.”

“For the administration to say that it’s a close tie to a known and suspected terrorist, well, where’s the evidence? No administration official has put forth a shred of evidence that my client Dr. Khan Suri has been involved or is affiliated with any known or suspected terrorist,” Ahmad told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Thursday.

“Political speech – however controversial some may find it – may never be the basis for punishment, including deportation,” ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Mary Bauer said. “We will not let this egregious, unprecedented, and illegal abuse of power go unchecked.” The ACLU of Virginia has joined Khan Suri’s legal team.

‘We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly,’ Georgetown says

In a statement to CNN, a Georgetown University spokesperson said, “We expect the legal system to adjudicate (Khan Suri’s) case fairly.”

In a letter obtained by CNN, Georgetown University Interim President Robert Groves told the school’s Board of Directors that Khan Suri had been detained and his visa revoked.

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

Khan Suri’s visa was to allow him “to continue his doctoral research on peace building in Iraq and Afghanistan,” court filings said.

Attorney Ahmad disputes the suggestion that Khan Suri poses any harm to US foreign policy, telling CNN, “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.”

Khushnuma Khan, Khan Suri’s sister, echoed Ahmad’s questioning of why the Georgetown scholar was being targeted. “My brother’s wife is from Gaza. So maybe that is why this is happening,” Khan told CNN.

CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Aishwarya S Iyer, Chris Boyette, Evan Pérez, Tierney Sneed and Aleena Fayaz contributed reporting.

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