WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s administration has detained an Indian man studying at Washington’s Georgetown University and is seeking to deport him after deeming him harmful to US foreign policy, the student’s lawyer said on Wednesday.
The US Department of Homeland Security accused Badar Khan Suri of ties to Hamas and said he had spread the group’s propaganda and anti-Semitism on social media, according to a statement it shared with Fox News.
The DHS statement to Fox News, which was reposted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, did not cite evidence. It said Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Suri’s activities “rendered him deportable.”
Suri — who is living in the US on a student visa and is married to an American citizen — has been detained in Alexandria, Louisiana, and is awaiting a court date in immigration court, his lawyer said.
Federal agents arrested him outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, on Monday night.
The case comes as Trump seeks to deport foreigners who took part in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s offensive in Gaza following an October 2023 Hamas attack.
Trump’s measures have sparked an outcry from civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups who accuse his administration of unfairly targeting political critics.
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which is part of the university’s School of Foreign Service. His arrest was first reported by Politico.
“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,” Suri’s lawyer said in an email.
A Georgetown University spokesperson said the university had not received a reason for Suri’s detention and it was not aware of Suri engaging in any illegal activity.
Meanwhile a department spokesperson alleged that he had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas.”, according to Anadolu Agency.
Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a US citizen, said his lawyer.
Saleh is from Gaza, according to the Georgetown University website, which said she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and worked with the foreign ministry in Gaza. Saleh has not been arrested, the lawyer added.
Suri himself has been teaching a class this semester on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” and has a PhD in peace and conflict studies from a university in India, according to the Georgetown University website.
Earlier this month the Trump administration arrested and sought to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Khalil is challenging his detention in court.
Trump, without evidence, has accused Khalil of supporting Hamas. Khalil’s legal team says he has no links to Hamas which the US designates as a “foreign terrorist organisation.”
Trump has alleged pro-Palestinian protesters are anti-Semitic.
Pro-Palestinian advocates, including some Jewish groups, say that their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and their support for Palestinian rights is wrongly conflated with anti-Semitism by their critics.
A US judge on Wednesday said Khalil must remain in the United States for now, but moved his challenge to the legality of his arrest over his participation in pro-Palestinian protests to a court in New Jersey.
Manhattan-based US District Judge Jesse Furman denied a bid by the Trump administration to dismiss the case, but agreed with the Justice Department that he did not have jurisdiction because Khalil was held in New Jersey at the time his lawyers first challenged his arrest in New York.
It will now be up to the New Jersey court to rule on Khalil’s bids to declare his arrest unconstitutional, and to be released on bail or moved. Khalil’s lawyers say his wife, an American citizen named Noor Abdallah, cannot visit him in Louisiana, where he is currently being held because she is eight months pregnant with their first child.
Khalil’s lawyer Samah Sisay said in a statement on Wednesday that the government moved him to Louisiana to avoid having the case heard in New York or New Jersey.
“Khalil should be free and home with his wife awaiting the birth of their first child, and we will continue to do everything possible to make that happen,” Sisay said.
