WASHINGTON, D.C. — Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, was released from a Texas immigration detention center this week after a federal judge ordered his immediate release, citing a lack of evidence to justify his detention.
Suri, an Indian national residing in Virginia, had been detained for nearly two months following his March 17 arrest by masked federal agents who informed him that his visa had been revoked. He was never charged with a crime.
“There was no charge, there was nothing. They made a subhuman out of me,” Suri said upon his release, according to NBC News.
Judge Patricia Giles of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the federal government failed to present evidence supporting Suri’s detention and did not demonstrate that he posed a threat to national security, according to The New York Times.
Suri is now free to return to his home in Virginia as he continues to challenge the legality of his detention. He also faces a separate deportation case in Texas, with a hearing scheduled for June 3, according to his legal team.
The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Suri had promoted antisemitism and spread propaganda linked to Hamas on social media, and that he maintained close ties to a known or suspected terrorist. His attorneys have denied those accusations, calling them retaliatory.
They argue that Suri and his Palestinian American wife were targeted for their outspoken support of Palestinian rights. Media reports noted that Suri’s father-in-law, who resides in Gaza, previously served as an advisor to a Hamas leader.
Suri is the latest academic to be released from immigration detention amid allegations of politically motivated targeting by the Trump administration. Just days earlier, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was released from federal custody in Louisiana after a judge in Vermont intervened on her behalf.
The Biden administration has not publicly commented on the status of Suri’s deportation proceedings.
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