 "Indian national Badar Khan Suri has been arrested in the US for opposing American foreign policy and faces deportation. Image courtesy: Georgetown360")
Donald Trump’s crackdown on “pro-Palestine sympathisers” continues. Days after Indian student Ranjani Srinivasan self-deported from the US following the revocation of her visa, the US administration targeted another Indian scholar, Badar Khan Suri. The researcher at Georgetown University in Washington DC has been arrested by federal immigration authorities and they are reportedly seeking his deportation.
Suri has been accused by the US Department of Homeland Security of spreading pro-Hamas propaganda and antisemitism on social media.
Suri’s detention comes nearly two weeks after immigration officers arrested Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.
We take a look at the allegations against Suri and what is next for him.
Who is Badar Khan Suri, arrested in the US?
Badar Khan Suri is a researcher at Georgetown University. He is studying and teaching on a student visa.
He is a postdoctoral fellow at the varsity’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and is also teaching “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” this semester.
Suri completed his PhD in peace and conflict students at New Delhi’s famous Jamia Millia Islamia in 2020.
An interdisciplinary scholar, Suri’s areas of interest are religion, violence and peace, especially ethnic conflicts in West Asia and South Asia. He is working on a project that looks into potential causes that hinder cooperation among religiously diverse societies and possibilities to overcome those hindrances, according to his profile on the Georgetown University website.
He has travelled to several conflict zones in Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine.
Suri is married to Mapheze Saleh, an American citizen of Palestinian heritage. They have a son, Arafat. The two met when Suri travelled to Gaza in 2011 as part of an international humanitarian convoy. Saleh was the translator for the group and had a great interest in India. That is how the two started bonding. They kept in touch after he left Gaza.
The two were to get married in Gaza in December 2013, but Suri and his family could not travel because of the geopolitical tensions in Egypt. They later got married in Delhi on January 1 2014, according to a report in Hindustan Times.
Why has Suri been detained by immigration authorities?
Suri was arrested by masked federal agents outside his residence in Rosslyn, Virginia on Monday night. They identified themselves with Homeland Security and told him that the US government revoked his visa.
According to a statement from Homeland Security, Suri has connections with Hamas, the Palestinian group which is designated a terrorist organisation in the US. However, it does not provide any direct evidence supporting this claim. The statement, reposted by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, also said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had determined that Suri’s actions made him “deportable”.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that Suri’s visa should be cancelled for foreign policy reasons, reports Politico.
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” McLaughlin wrote in a post on X on Thursday (March 20).
Is Suri targeted for his wife’s Palestinian heritage?
According to a petition for Suri’s release, he has no criminal record and has not been charged with any crime in the past.
His lawyer Hasan Ahmad said that the researcher has been punished because his wife who is a US citizen is of Palestinian heritage and the government suspects that the couple oppose US foreign policy on Israel.
The petition says that Suri and his wife have been “doxxed and smeared” for long on far-right websites because they support Palestinian rights. It also points out Suri’s wife Saleh who once worked for Al-Jazeera has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas”, reports Politico.
Saleh’s father Ahamed Yousuf was a former deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government in Gaza. “My father-in-law left the Hamas government after its five-year term ended and there were no fresh elections,” Suri told Hindustan Times in February 2018.
What can we expect next in Suri’s case?
Suri is waiting before the immigration court, according to news agency Reuters.
“The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i),” McLaughlin posted on X.
The petition for the Indian researcher’s release says that he has been put in deportation proceedings under the same provision of immigration law that the government invoked to deport Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green card holder . (His deportation has been blocked by a US federal judge.) Under the provision, the Secretary of State has to power to deport noncitizens if they determine that their presence in the US threatens foreign policy.
According to Suri’s lawyer, he has not been able to contact his client as of Wednesday evening. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet, This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil,” Ahmad said, referring to the case of the Columbia University student.
The lawsuit in Suri’s case was filed in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia on Tuesday and no judge was assigned to the case as of Wednesday, reports Politico.
Suri is currently being held at a facility near the Alexandria International Airport in Louisiana, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s online database. The researcher is likely to be transferred to a detention centre in Texas.
Georgetown University has defended Suri. “Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”
“We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly,” it added.
With inputs from agencies