Georgetown Univ. researcher detained by federal immigration officials

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Last edited Thu Mar 20, 2025, 11:32 AM - Edit history (1)

Georgetown Univ. researcher detained by federal immigration officials

Ciara Wells | [e-mail]
March 20, 2025, 7:50 AM

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this report incorrectly identified Badar Khan Suri as a professor.

A researcher at Georgetown University was detained by federal immigration agents on Monday night.

Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s School of Service and teaches a course on “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” at the school’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He was granted a visa to legally continue his studies in the U.S., the university told WTOP in a statement.

Khan Suri is an Indian national and completed his doctorate in New Delhi in 2020, according to his staff bio.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a post on X that Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.”

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Ciara Wells is the Evening Digital Editor at WTOP. She is a graduate of American University where she studied journalism and Spanish. Before joining WTOP, she was the opinion team editor at a student publication and a content specialist at an HBCU in Detroit.

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Here's the original story:

EXCLUSIVE

Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawsuit says
Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown, says he is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife, a U.S. citizen with Palestinian heritage.


Masked immigration agents arrested a Georgetown University fellow and told him his visa had been revoked, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. | Alex Brandon/AP

By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

03/19/2025 07:27 PM EDT

Updated: 03/19/2025 10:54 PM EDT

A Georgetown University researcher, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy, according to court papers.

Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, his lawyer said in a lawsuit fighting for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, the lawsuit says.

According to Suri’s petition for release, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secretary of State the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines that their continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy.

According to Suri’s petition for release, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secretary of State the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines that their continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy.

Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, his petition says. His detention and petition have not been previously reported.

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