A judge has ordered President Donald Trump's administration not to deport Badar Khan Suri, an Indian man studying at Washington's Georgetown University whose lawyer has said the United States was seeking to remove him after it accused him of harming US foreign policy.
The order on Thursday is to remain in effect until lifted by the court, according to the three-paragraph order by US District Judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia.
Suri's attorney wrote in an earlier court filing that Suri was targeted because of his wife's "identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech."
The filing said that federal authorities have provided no evidence that he's committed any crimes and that his detention violates his free speech and due process rights. Suri, who has no criminal record, holds a visa authorising him to be in the US as a visiting scholar, and his wife is a US citizen, according to the motion.
"The Trump Administration has openly expressed its intention to weaponise immigration law to punish noncitizens whose views are deemed critical of US policy as it relates to Israel," wrote Hassan Ahmad, Suri's Virginia-based attorney.
Suri was arrested Monday night outside of his Virginia home by masked officers who identified themselves as Department of Homeland Security agents and told him his visa had been revoked, according to the filing by Suri's lawyer.
The US Department of Homeland Security accused Suri of ties to the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and said he had spread antisemitism on social media, according to a statement it shared with Fox News.
The DHS statement to Fox News, which was reposted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, did not cite evidence. It said Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that Suri's activities "rendered him deportable."
TRT Global - Leaders denounce Mahmoud Khalil's arrest as a blatant attack on free speech — the first known attempt to go after students who protested Israel's war on Gaza last spring.
'Smeared and doxxed'
Suri and his wife, Mapheze Saleh, "have long been doxxed and smeared," Suri's lawyer wrote. Critics have published Saleh's photograph online along with information that includes her former employment with Al Jazeera and her birthplace in Gaza City "as support for her alleged ties with Hamas."
Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown, told The Associated Press that Suri was intensely focused on teaching and research centered on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia.
Suri felt strong solidarity and sympathy for Palestinians, but was not outwardly political on campus, the professor said.
"We've organised dozens of events since October 7th, when the Israel-Gaza war began, and I don't recall seeing him in any of those events," said Hashemi, who directs the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where Suri is a post-doctoral fellow.
"That's not who he was."
The case follows the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent Palestinian activist at Columbia University, who was arrested over his Gaza activism.
Trump hailed his arrest and said it was the "first of many." The administration faced protests against his detention and demanded his release.
