Judge bars Trump administration from deporting Indian student over 'Hamas ties'

New York: A US federal judge has blocked the deportation of an Indian student at Georgetown University who was arrested after federal authorities accused him of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda”.

Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

In a court order dated March 20, United States District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said, “It is ordered that petitioner shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order.” A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson earlier said in a statement to PTI that “Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.

"The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable.” Suri’s lawyer Hassan Ahmad had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on March 18. According to the petition, the Department of Homeland Security had arrested and charged Suri with “removability” on March 17.

At the time of filing, Suri alleged he was being detained at the Farmville Detention Center in Farmville, Virginia, Giles' order had noted.

Suri’s lawyer said he and his team are working “diligently” to secure his client’s removal from the detention facility.

“We welcome Judge Giles’ ruling,” Ahmad said in a statement to CNN.

“It is the first due process Dr Suri has received since he was snatched away from his family on Monday night.” A report in Politico had said that Suri, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, was “detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy.” The report said that “masked agents” arrested Suri from outside his home in Virginia Monday night.

Suri's lawyer said in the petition that he 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.” The petition says the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights. The petition adds that Suri’s wife Mapheze Saleh has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera.

The Politico report cited a 2018 Indian newspaper article that had said that Saleh’s father, Ahamed Yousef, was a former deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government in Gaza.

In the newspaper article, Suri is quoted as saying that “My father-in-law left the Hamas government after its five-year term ended and there were no fresh elections.”  Suri’s father-in-law told The New York Times that his son-in-law was not involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas.

The Politico report said that Suri’s lawyer has filed a lawsuit for his immediate release.

“The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa,” the lawsuit says, according to the Politico report.

The report added that according to Suri’s petition, he was put in “deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law” that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident arrested for his role in leading campus protests at Columbia against Israel.

The petition further notes that Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime.

According to his profile on the website of Georgetown University, Suri completed his PhD in Peace & Conflict Studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 2020.  He wrote his thesis on "Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq" in which he underlined the complexities involved in introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies; as well as challenges to project state building.  He has travelled extensively in the conflict zones of India, Pakistan, Balochistan in Iran, Iran, Turkey, Kurdish Areas in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and its southern region, Egypt and Palestine.   The Politico report quoted a statement from a Georgetown spokesperson as saying that 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." "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. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.” Suri's arrest comes less than a week after Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia University, self-deported after her visa was revoked for allegedly “advocating for violence and terrorism” and involvement in activities supporting Hamas.

Srinivasan had entered the United States on a F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security had said. It added that Srinivasan was “involved in activities supporting” Hamas, a terrorist organisation.

The Department of State had revoked her visa on March 5. The Department of Homeland Security said it had obtained video footage of Srinivasan using the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Home App to self-deport on March 11.