After Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil, a researcher from Georgetown University Badar Khan Suri was detained by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents on March 17. Agents informed Suri that his student visa had been revoked.

Suri, an Indian-origin postdoctoral associate at Georgetown University, faces deportation under the same immigration law provision used against Khalil in less than two weeks after Khalil’s ordeal.

The Immigration and Nationality Act—invoked by Trump in a move that legal experts argue exceeded his authority—states that any immigrant may be deported if the Secretary of State determines that their activities or presence in the US could pose “adverse foreign policy consequences.”

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the deportation of Suri, who has been accused of spreading Hamas propaganda. Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled that Suri cannot be removed from the US unless the court issues a contrary order.

The closest justification given is that Mahmoud Khalil was designated for deportation for “leading activities aligned with Hamas,” while Suri was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” and having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist.”

The defence contends that there is no evidence of criminal activity on Suri’s part.

The claim about Suri’s alleged “close connections” appears to refer to his Palestinian father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, who previously served as an adviser to the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

However, Yousef stepped down from that role over a decade ago and has since publicly criticised Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 attacks, according to reports.

Suri’s attorney, Hassan Ahmad, argued that he was targeted solely for his social media posts and his wife’s Palestinian identity and activism.

Ahmad emphasised that Suri is an academic, not an activist, and that his online statements about the Israel-Gaza war should be protected under the First Amendment.

Neither Khalil nor Suri has been accused of breaking any law, and the DHS has presented no evidence for either deportation.

Unlike Khalil, Suri was not known for leading activism efforts or organising public demonstrations.

Following his detention, Georgetown University stated that it had no knowledge of Suri engaging in any illegal activity and had not been provided with a reason for his detention.

Think Tank takes credit

It didn’t take long for a pro-Israel organisation to claim credit for uncovering details about Suri’s Palestinian wife’s family.

Shortly after news of his detention spread, the Middle East Forum (MEF) published a blog post boasting about its role in bringing Suri to the attention of US authorities.

“Hamas-Linked Georgetown Academic Faces Deportation Following MEF Report,” the organisation declared in a headline, explicitly linking its efforts to the Trump administration’s decision to deport Suri.

The headline refers to a report published on February 24, nearly a month before Suri’s detention. The report connects Suri to his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef.

“The Middle East Forum think tank has uncovered that Saleh, the daughter of longtime Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef, is married to Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri,” the article states, before listing accusations that it claims prove Suri’s alleged alignment with extremism.

Among the accusations is the claim that he “denied well-documented reports of the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.”

The report cites a Facebook post in which Suri wrote: “Three lies by Israeli occupation, no proof whatsoever of babies beheaded, rapes, or mass killings at [the] carnival.”

In a blog post published after Suri’s arrest, MEF praised the Trump administration for taking action against Suri while criticising Georgetown University for its inaction, apparently despite its investigative work identifying and publicizing Suri as “someone so openly sympathetic to terrorism”.

“Unlike Georgetown University, which offered no acknowledgment or response to evidence of Suri’s Hamas links, the Trump administration took decisive action in preventing the United States from becoming a haven for extremists hiding behind academic credentials,” the article reads.

MEF’s founder and president, Daniel Pipes, went even further on X, directly linking the group’s investigative work to the arrival of masked DHS agents at Suri’s doorstep.

“Thanks to her work, @DHSgov…arrested Suri and plans to deport him,” he wrote, referring to Anna Stanley, the producer of the article.

Middle East Forum’s history

Daniel Pipes has a long history of spreading anti-Islam rhetoric. In a 1990 article published in National Review, he referred to Muslims as “brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene.”

His organisation, the Middle East Forum (MEF), is a think tank known for its anti-Islamist, pro-Israel stance and hawkish foreign policy positions.

MEF also created Campus Watch, a program designed to monitor professors it deems problematic—particularly those who criticize US foreign policy or the Israeli occupation.

The MEF has been accused of spreading conspiracy theories about Muslim organisations in the US, labelling them part of a supposed “Wahhabi lobby.” It has also advocated for increased racial profiling of Muslims and Arabs.

Pipes was among the first to spread the false claim that extremists had “taken over 80% of the mosques,” another debunked myth that has been repeated and amplified for decades by public officials, media personalities, and anti-Muslim advocacy groups.

The Campus Watch website encourages students and others to submit reports on professors they believe are biased against Israel or sympathetic to Islamist movements.

Betar boasts of larger crackdown

MEF is not the only controversial pro-Israel group taking credit for Trump’s immigration crackdown targeting pro-Palestinian activists.

On March 14, the far-right Zionist group Betar US publicly claimed responsibility for Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest. The group announced on social media that it had submitted a “deportation list” to Trump administration officials, which allegedly contained thousands of names of individuals involved in pro-Palestinian university protests.

The list reportedly includes students from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, and Syracuse University, among others.

According to The Guardian, a former Betar official revealed that AI-driven facial recognition was used to identify protesters—even those wearing face coverings.

These lists, paired with “documentation, including tapes, social media, and more,” have reportedly been shared with high-ranking officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller.

Betar US has made it clear that its efforts will not stop with immigrants. “Expect naturalised citizens to start being picked up within the month,” the group posted on X.

Betar is the same group that called for the mass murder of Palestinians in response to a post listing the names of dead infants in Gaza on February 20, 2025.

“Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!” the group wrote in reply.

As of March 2025, the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel exceeds 49,600, with approximately 70% of the victims being women and children.