Georgetown Postdoc the Latest to Be Detained by ICE as Crackdown on Campus Speech Widens

Badar Khan Suri was detained by DHS agents after a public campaign against him and his wife by pro-Israel groups.

Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, is facing potential deportation by the Trump administration (Photo via his GT faculty web page)

Dr. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow in peace and conflict studies at Georgetown University, was detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on his way home from teaching an evening class on March 17. Suri, an Indian citizen, is a fellow at the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, an interfaith research center housed at the school's D.C. campus. Around 8PM that day, he was approached by a group of individuals wearing face coverings who identified themselves as DHS agents, according to court filings. The agents, who detained him near his home in Arlington, Virginia, informed him that the U.S. government had revoked his J-1 visa—a non-immigrant visa for foreign nationals participating in educational and cultural exchange programs.

After being taken into custody, Suri was transferred to an ICE detention facility in Virginia, where he was briefly able to call his family, before he was transferred again to a facility in Louisiana, where he is currently being held. Since then, neither his family nor his lawyers have been able to speak with Suri. According to ICE detainee locator records, Suri is not being held at the same ICE facility as Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia University graduate and legal resident whose detention became a flashpoint in the Trump administration's efforts to use immigration powers to roll back speech rights related to pro-Palestine activism.

"Each week families are torn apart by policies that weaponize immigration enforcement to silence dissent," said Nermeen Arastu, a member of Suri's legal team and an associate professor at CUNY School of Law. "Mr. Suri’s case is emblematic of a broader strategy by the Trump Administration to suppress voices—citizens and non-citizens alike—who dare to speak out against governmental policies."

Suri's arrest comes after an exceptionally public media campaign targeting his wife, Mapheze Saleh, by pro-Israel groups. Saleh, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian background, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political advisor to the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, after the group gained control there in 2006. Yousef has been a writer and commentator on Hamas in recent years for major Western media publications, including the New York Times and The Guardian.

Saleh herself is a first-year graduate student at Georgetown, whose biography indicates that she has previously worked in a civilian role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza. Weeks prior to Suri's arrest, a number of pro-Israel social media accounts had made Saleh and her family an intense focus of their messaging efforts, publishing articles and short video clips about her, one of which was shared by the official X account of the Israeli embassy in Washington this February.

In 2018, Saleh explained to the Indian publication the Hindustan Times how she saw the role of Hamas in Palestine: "For Palestinians, Hamas is a political party fighting for the cause of Palestine—not a terrorist organization—and those questions also give me an opportunity to explain the Palestine cause," she said. The article told the story of her first meeting with Suri, who joined a humanitarian convoy to the besieged territory seven years earlier, and their subsequent life together in New Delhi.

On March 19, Joel Hellman, dean of the School of Foreign Service at the university, sent an internal communication informing faculty and staff that Suri's legal work authorization had been revoked after his detention by DHS. Stating that the school was in communication with his family and had informed him about his options for legal counsel, Hellman added, "During his time on campus, I am not aware that Badar has engaged in any illegal activity, nor has he posed a threat to the security of our campus."

On February 25, less than four weeks prior to Suri's arrest, an opinion article published by Jewish News Syndicate targeted Suri's social media statements, characterizing him as a supporter of terrorism and accusing him of downplaying the October 7 attacks.

Jenin Younes, a civil liberties attorney and expert on First Amendment issues, told Drop Site News, “The First Amendment is clearly a restraint on the government that says, 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.' It doesn’t say anything about the speaker, and doesn’t state any exception for noncitizens.” She added, “It is completely unprincipled and antithetical to classical liberal principles to punish someone for the speech or actions of another person. If they cannot target a Palestinian or pro-Palestinian activist for deportation because they are a U.S. citizen, it seems that the next move of the administration and pro-Israel groups is to target their spouses for removal, and thereby get the Palestinian activist out of the country, too."

A day after Suri was taken into custody, his lawyer, Hassan Ahmed, filed a habeas corpus complaint at the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The petition seeks relief on grounds that his arrest violates his First and Fifth Amendment rights and challenges the legality of his detention under U.S. immigration law.

Ahmed stated to the court: "In this case, the government appears to be targeting Mr. Suri, a noncitizen, due to his U.S. citizen wife’s identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech."

Following the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil earlier this month and President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at combating antisemitism on domestic college campuses, U.S. officials have vowed that further legal measures will be taken against other individuals in the country, including green card holders or those on student visas. While First Amendment rights are viewed as applicable to foreign citizens in the U.S., including on campuses where free debate and inquiry are a vital part of academic culture, the Trump administration is pressing forward with a policy of strictly curtailing campus speech on Israel-Palestine, whether through funding cuts, legal measures, or immigration enforcement.

Suri's detention has inflamed an already tense environment on the Georgetown campus. Student groups are calling on the school to take action on his behalf, fearing more crackdowns on speech from the administration. "The detention and arrest of Dr. Badar Khan Suri comes amid escalating repression of students, faculty, and staff at universities across America. If Georgetown fails to object to violations of constitutional law, it risks community members' safety and lives," said the board of Georgetown Law Students for Justice in Palestine in a statement shared with Drop Site. "If scholars continue to be detained and arrested for constitutionally protected speech, higher education will crumble."

Drop Site News reached out to Robert M. Groves, the interim president of Georgetown University for a response.