A federal judge on Thursday halted the planned deportation of a Georgetown University student accused by the Department of Homeland Security of spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media, saying the Trump administration can’t remove him from the U.S. unless the court rules otherwise.
U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of Alexandria, Va., issued the order three days after the man was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral scholar on a student visa from India. His visa was revoked after Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined on March 15 that the foreign exchange student could be deported under the Immigration and Nationality Act, DHS said. He lived in Rosslyn, Va., with his wife and three children.
Suri is being held at an ICE detention center in Louisiana, according to news outlets. His lawyers are seeking his return to Virginia.
The attorneys argue the Trump administration violated their client’s due process rights and targeted his speech on Israel and Gaza, claiming that constitutes viewpoint discrimination. They say he has no criminal record and has not been formally charged with a crime.
In addition to supporting Hamas and promoting antisemitism, Suri allegedly demonstrated connections to a terrorist who was a senior Hamas adviser, seemingly thanks to his wife. Mapheze Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former senior adviser for the Hamas Foreign Ministry and Ismail Haniyeh, whom Israel killed in Tehran last year amid its war with Hamas.
Saleh has worked at the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza and served with the Hamas government’s Committee to Break the Siege in Gaza, which was chaired by her father, National Review previously reported. She is a graduate student at Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.
Canary Mission, a watchdog website that identifies anti-Israel or antisemitic students, professors, and organizations, says Suri has expressed support for Hamas in the group’s profile of Saleh.
Suri was conducting “doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan” prior to his arrest, Georgetown said. The university claimed it was unaware he supported terrorism.
“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” a Georgetown spokesperson said. “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.”
Suri’s arrest comes after ICE detained a Palestinian activist at Columbia University, Mahmoud Khalil, and tried deporting him until a judge intervened. Khalil, a green card holder from Syria, participated in the 2024 anti-Israel campus protests and promoted Hamas. Like Suri, he is being held at a Louisiana detention facility.
Khalil’s deportation case was moved to New Jersey by a New York judge this week.