A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Georgetown University scholar Dr. Badar Khan Suri must be released from Texas immigration detention, saying he poses no threat to the community and that the Trump administration likely violated his First Amendment rights when masked ICE agents snatched him outside his Virginia home in March.
A lawyer for the Indian-born Suri, who was teaching at Georgetown on an academic visa, announced the ruling outside the Virginia courtroom to massive cheers from the crowd.
The Trump administration accused Suri of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him and revoked his visa nearly two months ago.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles ruled that Suri may be released so long as he maintains his residency in Virginia and attends other hearings in his case, which he may do virtually.
Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, a U.S. citizen who is Palestinian-American, released a statement after the ruling expressing deep gratitude to Giles for her ruling.
“Hearing the judge’s words brought tears to my eyes,” Saleh said. “I truly wish I could give her a heartfelt hug from me and from my three children, who long every day to see their father again. Speaking out about what’s happening in Palestine is not a crime.”
A day before his release, Suri published an account of what happened to him on Truthout, reaffirming that he “unapologetically support[s] Palestinians, and their inalienable rights guaranteed by international law.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who attended at least one of Suri’s hearings earlier this month, said the judge’s ruling was a “taste of justice” for his constituent.
“Dr. Khan Suri was targeted because the Trump Administration wanted to instill fear on American campuses by responding with unnecessarily and illegally draconian force to students and scholars who expressed views they dislike,” Beyer said in a statement. “The administration’s treatment of Dr. Badar Khan Suri and the growing list of others like him has been authoritarian and is a gross betrayal of American values. This persecution of dissent must end.”
According to court filings, Suri was teaching a course on minority rights in South Asia before his arrest. Despite his detention, he has not been charged with any crimes.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Suri in court, said he was moved among five different ICE facilities across three states in just four days before landing at a facility in Texas, “where he spent nearly two weeks in a room without a bed and with a television blaring twenty-one hours a day,” the organization said in a statement upon his release.
He was also issued used underwear and dressed in a “bright red high-risk uniform reserved for people alleged to pose the greatest security threats,” the ACLU said.
Suri’s arrest hinged on Trump administration claims that Suri had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement following his arrest.
Suri’s father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, did serve as an adviser to late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, but told The New York Times that he’d left the role over a decade ago and holds no senior position in the organization. He has publicly criticized the militant group’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, calling it a “terrible error.”
This is the third time in days that a federal judge has ruled that a Trump-targeted academic must be released from immigration detention. Last week, a judge ordered the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish visa holder at Tufts University, who was detained for for co-authoring an op-ed in her school newspaper. The week before, a judge ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian student visa holder at Columbia University whom Trump officials branded a “terrorist sympathizer.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Suri’s release.