Virginia, U.S.- An Indian visiting scholar at Georgetown University, Badar Khan Suri, was ordered released from ICE custody by a U.S. federal judge. Official: Suri should not have been detained officially. Wednesday issued a decision that found his detention might violate constitutional rights, mainly free speech.
Badar Khan Suri( a guy who had been arrested in Virginia in March and then thrown in an immigration detention facility in Texas for roughly 2 months). His arrest warrant was based on the revocation of his visa by the Trump administration. Suri was detained because of charges that he “was an ongoing offender of Hamas information and urging antisemitism on social media” and family connections to a “known or suspected terrorist,” through his father-in-law. The government claimed that he should be removed under a provision of immigration law which allows deportation where its opponent is deemed a national security threat to U.S. foreign policy.
But the arrest was seen as part of an overall, if unconnected, crackdown on foreign students and scholars so vocal in their pro-Palestinian positions.
At U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ordered that Suri be released immediately. In her decision, Judge Giles found Suri had raised substantial constitutional claims: her opinion held that his political speech on the conflict and opposition to Israel’s military campaign likely was protected at least under contemporary First Amendment doctrine (applicable to non-citizens). The judge also weighed in regards to what his detention would mean to his family, a wife and three children in tow, determining that he did not represent a threat to the community. She questioned the government’s reason to move him from a Detention facility.
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The judge directed that Suri Badar Khan Suri be discharged from custody, and will go back to his family in Virginia, but his legal problems aren’t over yet. He also still has to appear in days-long immigration court proceedings in Texas, and his suit against the Trump administration for unlawful arrest and imprisonment is ongoing. His case is a revealing glimpse of the heightened lawfare and government protections granted to foreign nationals in America over their political speech and associations, especially as it relates to politically sensitive issues originating abroad.
