Georgetown University researcher in U.S. on student visa arrested and detained by ICE
Washington – A Georgetown University researcher was detained by immigration authorities by immigration authorities, according to court records and the Department of Homeland Security, a Georgetown University researcher is said to have “close connections” with Hamas officials, amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on militants across the university campus.
Indian national Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral colleague who studies and teaches in Georgetown. Surry’s attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus, accompanied by a complaint, and a day after his arrest, challenged it Tuesday in federal court in Virginia. CBS News obtained the documents Thursday.
The complaint says Suri was surrounded and detained by masked DHS agents when she returned to her home in Rosslyn, Virginia, who lived there with his wife Mapheze Saleh and his three children after breaking into Ramadan on March 17.
“The agent identified himself as a member of the Department of Homeland Security and said the government has revoked his visa,” the complaint said.
About two hours after his arrest, Surry called his wife to let her know that he was taken to a detention center in Falfville, Virginia, his attorney said. They added that they believe he will likely be transferred to a detention center in Los Fresnos, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border. On Wednesday, ICE’s online prisoner locator showed Surry was held in a Louisiana detention center. However, as of Thursday, searches looking for his name returned zero results.
Surry’s lawyers said his “unreasonable detention” violated his due process rights. They argued that the Trump administration’s removal of non-citizens was “arbitrary and capricious” based on protected remarks, especially his and his wife’s stance in Israel and Gaza. They said he had no criminal record and was not charged with any crime.
The complaint said the couple had long been online by a “doxx and doxx” on a “anonymously run blacklist” website called Canary Mission. The website claims that the lawyer Suri said that Saleh, who was a U.S. citizen, “had worked for Hamas, expressed support for Hamas terrorism and called for Israel to destroy,” the site introduced her profile at the scene. The complaint says Canary’s mission is a blacklist of individuals whose creators believe support for Palestinian rights, “notorious, notorious, deceitful, slandered and slandered scholars and students.” The complaint also claimed that the couple was “smeared” by other websites.
A Georgetown University spokesman said Surry received a visa to “continue his doctoral study on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
“We don’t know that he engages in any illegal activities and have received no reason for his detention,” a school spokesman told CBS News. “Even if the freedom and right of public inquiries, deliberation and debate among our community members, even if the underlying ideas can be difficult, controversial or offensive. We hope that the legal system will be able to rule the case fairly.”
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News in his own statement that Surry is a “forex student at Georgetown University who actively spreads Hamas propaganda and promotes anti-Semitism on social media.”
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security claimed that Surry “has a close link with Hamas’ senior adviser to known or suspected terrorists.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a decision on March 15 that “Suri’s activities and presence in the United States have led to his expulsion.” Immigration and Nationality Lawa spokesperson added.
Detention follows ice field agent Controversial arrest in New York City on March 8 Photo by Columbia University student and green card holder Mahmoud Khalil was a 2024 pro-Palestine campus protest.
30-year-old Khalilan Algerian national born in Syria, of Palestinian parents, was also held in a Louisiana detention center. Harrier was arrested in front of his wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time.
In a statement to CBS News last week, the Department of Homeland Security accused Khalil of arrest as “supporting President Trump’s executive order to ban anti-Semitism,” accusing the former student of “leading an activity consistent with Hamas,” but did not provide evidence of the claim or detail any alleged criminal charges against him.
A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the case of Khalil could be heard in New Jersey rather than New York or Louisiana. Khalil was briefly held in a New Jersey detention facility before moving to Louisiana.
