Georgetown Scholar Badar Khan Suri Released From ICE Detention
The judge's decision strikes another blow to the Trump administration following the release of Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia – Indian Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri was released from ICE detention in Texas on Wednesday after a federal judge ordered him to be freed on bail.
Khan Suri's release is "in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech,” Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said at a hearing in the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
A crowd of cheering supporters gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate the decision.
As with the Trump administration’s other targets like Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, and Mohsen Mahdawi, Khan Suri has committed no crime; the Trump administration is attempting to deport Khan Suri on spurious charges of compromising US foreign policy – a determination that must be made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Wednesday’s news follows the release of Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia University student, and Ozturk, a Tufts University student, from ICE detention.
In Khan Suri’s case, the administration vaguely claims he was “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” and alleges he “has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas."
His father-in-law Ahmed Yousef – who departed from his role as an adviser to Hamas over a decade ago – has said Khan Suri wasn't involved in "political activism” on behalf of Hamas. Yousef criticized the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Masked agents detained Khan Suri on March 17. According to this legal team, in just four days, Khan Suri was transferred between five different facilities across three states, eventually ending up in Texas. On several occasions, his legal team says he was denied food or water to break his fast. In one of the facilities, Khan Suri was kept in a room without a bed and with a television blaring for 21 hours a day for almost two weeks. He was given used underwear and was not allowed to spend more than two hours a week outside.
In making her decision, Judge Giles explained how the government did not submit evidence on some of its claims. She also said that in its argument that Rubio's determination that Khan Suri “would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences” is facially sufficient, the government didn't even submit the secretary of state’s determination to the court.
Last week, Giles had denied the Trump administration’s request to move Khan Suri’s challenge to his arrest from Virginia to a federal court in Texas.
Earlier this week, Khan Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, described to Zeteo what conditions Khan Suri has faced:
Imagine that you don't have access to your basic needs. Imagine that, having to use the bathroom, you will have 55 audience [members] watching your heads and shoulders and legs. Imagine you don't have access to fresh air – only twice a week for two hours. Imagine [being given] food which is not sufficient for a cat.
Imagine that your day and night are the same because they will never switch off the lights in the detention center... And when it comes to security check, they will call him by his number, not by his name. They will ask him for his number which they assigned to him. So, you imagine all of that and you will come to know what Badar is going through.”
Khan Suri’s son spent days crying uncontrollably and eventually wouldn’t speak at all, according to his legal team. Saleh told Zeteo that their son fell into a “deep depression” that has led him to begin seeing a therapist.
“I came to the US to work and raise my family: I go to work, come home late, and still they came and took me and broke my family,” Khan Suri said last month. “In my work, I’ve seen lots of injustice. I just didn’t think it would happen to me here.”
Now, Khan Suri will be able to reunite with his family as his case proceeds.
“My only ‘crimes’ making me a ‘national security threat’ are my marriage to a United States citizen of Palestinian origin and my support for the Palestinian cause,” Khan Suri wrote this week in a letter he dictated to his lawyers.
“The time-honored principles I have adopted as my own also empower me to leave no avenue unexplored in defying the witch hunt unleashed upon me and others who believe in freedom for Palestinians. We will reject authoritarianism and oppose this travesty of justice. Be courageous, because courage is contagious. Together, we can stand against the tide of totalitarianism, because, as the Mundaka Upanishad states, ‘satyameva jayate’ — ultimately truth triumphs over falsehood.”
If you are a student affected by this or someone who works in or around the US government with relevant information about Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestine speech, please contact me via email or Signal (premthakker.35).
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional details throughout.
Check out more from Zeteo:
Thank you for the good news!
This is fantastic news!!! So happy to hear it.