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Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow, was detained by masked agents outside his home in the Rosslyn neighbourhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday, over his alleged ties with Hamas.
Badar Khan Suri is facing deportation from the US for his wife’s alleged ties to Hamas. (X/Reuters)
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, is the latest to face deportation in the United States over alleged ties to Palestinian militant group Hamas amid the Donald Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists who staged protests across US campuses last year.
Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow, was detained by masked agents affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security outside his home in the Rosslyn neighbourhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night and was told that his visa had been revoked over his alleged Hamas ties, according to reports.
Suri’s petition for release says he was put in deportation proceedings under the provision of immigration that has been used by the government to arrest and try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and green card holder, who was involved in the 2024 pro-Palestinian campus protests.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that Suri’s visa should be cancelled for foreign policy reasons. “Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin said on X.
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… https://t.co/gU02gLAlX1
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) March 20, 2025
The Homeland Security Department also claimed that Suri had close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas. His detention is the latest in a string of immigration-latest arrests targeting alleged “terrorist sympathisers” and people engaging in “anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.
Who Is Badar Khan Suri?
Suri is an Indian national and 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. Before this, he had completed his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia in 2020.
He is an interdisciplinary scholar whose areas of interest lie in religion, violence and peace, ethnic conflicts and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia, according to Georgetown University. The information on the website has now been made private.
Suri wrote his thesis on “Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq”, where he focused on the complicated process of introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies.
Suri’s wife is Mapheze Saleh, a Gaza-born US citizen who is also a student at Georgetown University. Suri’s lawyer Hassan Ahmed claims that he is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife as the government suspects that they oppose US foreign policy towards Israel.
Suri’s Alleged Ties With Hamas
The Indian researcher’s petition says that the couple has “long been doxed and smeared” on far-right websites due to their outspoken support for Palestinian rights. Suri’s wife Saleh has alleged ties with Hamas and once worked for Al Jazeera, a pro-Palestinian news outlet.
According to a 2018 report by the Hindustan Times, Mapheze Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, was a senior political advisor to the Hamas leadership in Gaza. She met Suri when he was part of an international humanitarian convoy to Gaza in 2011. The couple was supposed to get married in Gaza in 2013 but could not do so due to the volatile situation in Egypt, through which they could enter the Strip.
Saleh’s father was a former deputy foreign minister in Hamas government in Gaza, who left the government after its five-year term ended and began heading the House of Wisdom Institute (HoW) for conflict resolution, which provides courses in humanitarian law and governance, as per the report. Saleh has often been invited to seminars and conferences to speak on the Israel-Palestine conflict
Where Is Badar Khan Suri Now?
Suri’s petition said he was taken to a facility in Virginia and expected to be transferred soon to a detention centre in Texas, according to Politico. On Wednesday evening, an online locator for immigration detainees showed him at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement “staging” centre at the Alexandria, Louisiana, airport.
A judge is yet to be assigned to Suri’s case. His lawyer claims that he has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil,” his lawyer said.
The Indian national and postdoctoral fellow- who was studying and teaching on a student visa- is pursuing his “doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan”, as per a statement from Georgetown University spokesperson.
The statement added, “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.”
- Location :
Washington D.C., United States of America (USA)
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