The U.S. government has detained an Indian citizen who was studying and teaching at Georgetown University, and said he had been deemed “deportable” for violating the terms of his student visa.
The academic, Badar Khan Suri, was detained at his home in Rosslyn, Va., on Monday night, according to his lawyer, Hassan Ahmad. Mr. Suri was “awaiting his court date in immigration court” in Alexandria, La., Mr. Ahmad said.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said Mr. Suri was “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” Ms. McLaughlin didn’t provide evidence to support the claim.
Mr. Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, according to Mr. Ahmad. Politico first reported on the news of Mr. Suri’s detention.
Mr. Ahmad said that Mr. Suri denied all of the allegations made in Ms. McLaughlin’s statement. He said that he believed the accusations against Mr. Suri were “seemingly based on who his father-in-law was,” but that he was still researching the case.
Mr. Suri’s wife is Palestinian American. Her father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader whom Israel assassinated last year in Iran. Mr. Yousef confirmed in a voice message that Mr. Suri is his son-in-law and said that Mr. Suri was not involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas.
Mr. Yousef, who lives in Gaza, said he left his position in the Hamas-run government in Gaza more than a decade ago and does not currently hold a senior position with the militant group. He has publicly criticized Hamas’s decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which set off the war in Gaza.
Ms. McLaughlin said that Mr. Suri had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas,” and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had deemed him “deportable.”
Ms. McLaughlin said Mr. Suri was detained under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which the administration is using to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident who had a prominent role in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia.
The measure says the Secretary of State can initiate deportation proceedings against any noncitizen whose presence in the United States he deems a threat to the country’s foreign policy interests. Mr. Trump had said earlier this month that Mr. Khalil’s case was the first of “many to come.” Civil rights groups have said such arrests of immigrants with some form of legal status are a clear violation of the First Amendment.
While both men were deemed deportable under the same statute, Mr. Suri was studying in the United States on a J-1 student visa while Mr. Khalil had a green card.
Georgetown University, where Mr. Suri was a postdoctoral fellow, said in a statement that it was not aware of Mr. Suri “engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”
“Seeing our government abduct and jail another innocent person is beyond contemptible,” Mr. Ahmad said.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.
