New York– A federal judge has ordered the release of Indian academic Dr. Badar Khan Suri, who had been detained by U.S. immigration authorities and faced possible deportation, ruling that his constitutional rights had been violated.
Judge Patricia Giles, presiding in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled Wednesday that the U.S. government failed to provide evidence that Suri posed a threat to public safety and emphasized that the First Amendment’s protections of free speech apply equally to non-citizens.
“The First Amendment extends to non-citizens and does not differentiate between citizens and non-citizens,” Judge Giles said. She suggested that Suri’s arrest and deportation proceedings were likely influenced by his political views and his marriage to a Palestinian-American woman.
Suri, who earned his Ph.D. from Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, was a post-doctoral fellow at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he taught a course on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” and conducted research on peacebuilding in conflict zones.
His wife, Maphaze Ahmad Yousef, is a U.S. citizen and the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, who has been described in media reports as a senior political advisor to the Hamas leadership.
According to his attorney, Suri was apprehended in March by masked immigration officers outside his home in suburban Virginia and informed that his student visa had been revoked. He was initially taken to a detention facility in Louisiana and later transferred to Texas, where he remains at risk of deportation.
U.S. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin accused Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” but the court found no substantiated threat to national security.
Suri’s legal team filed a habeas corpus petition challenging his detention and seeking his release. Government lawyers attempted to move the case to Texas, where immigration courts are often more conservative. Despite his release order in Virginia, Suri still faces deportation proceedings in a Texas court.
Judge Giles’ decision marks the third major legal setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to deport international students accused of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
Last week, a federal judge ordered the release of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, who had also been detained after her visa was revoked over an article she wrote for a student newspaper. Similarly, on April 30, a judge ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a student activist who led anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and had been detained pending deportation. (Source: IANS)
