India postdoctoral fellow detained in US for backing Palestinian cause

Masked agents arrested Suri outside his home in the Rosslyn neighbourhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, Politico reported

New Delhi: Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in the United States (US) has been detained by federal immigration authorities, reportedly for supporting the Palestinian cause, less than a week after another Indian student self-deported on being accused of involvement in activities supporting Hamas.

Badar Khan Suri, whose family hails from Jamia Nagar in New Delhi, was studying and teaching on a student visa (gufaculty360.georgetown.edu)

Suri, whose family hails from Jamia Nagar in New Delhi, was studying and teaching on a student visa. His detention is part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists accused of opposing US foreign policy.

Masked agents arrested Suri outside his home in the Rosslyn neighbourhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, Politico reported, citing his lawyer’s lawsuit filed on Tuesday for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as operatives of the Department of Homeland Security and told Suri the government had revoked his visa.

According to the lawsuit, Suri was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the US administration has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that Suri’s visa should be cancelled for foreign policy reasons.

“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin said in a social media post. “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

A profile of Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, published in Hindustan Times in 2018 said Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, was a former deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government in Gaza who went on to head the House of Wisdom Institute for conflict resolution, which provides courses in humanitarian law and governance.

Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, his lawyer’s petition stated. His lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, argued in the petition that Suri is being “punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife – who is a US citizen – and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose US foreign policy toward Israel”, Politico reported.

The petition added the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites for their support for Palestinian rights, and that Saleh was alleged to have “ties with Hamas”.

Ahmad said in an interview he had not been able to contact Suri as of Wednesday evening. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”

Trump has said recent immigration-related arrests have targeted “terrorist sympathisers” or people who “engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity”. Legal experts have contended Trump is violating the First Amendment of the US Constitution by retaliating against non-citizens because of their political views and free speech.

Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, part of the Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He was teaching a class on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia”.

“Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a Georgetown University spokesperson said.

“We are 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.”

Suri’s detention came less than a week after Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia University, self-deported to Canada after her visa was revoked for allegedly “advocating for violence and terrorism” and involvement in activities supporting Hamas. Srinivasan came to the US on an F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University.

The US State Department revoked her visa on March 5. Srinivasan used the Customs and Border Protection Home App to self-deport on March 11.