Less than a week after a Columbia University student from India self-deported over pro-Palestinian protests, a postdoctoral fellow from India, enrolled in a U.S. institution, has been detained by immigration authorities.
Badar Khan Suri, enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University was detained by immigration authorities outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, according to a report by Politico.
He completed his Ph.D. in Peace & Conflict Studies from the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, in 2020.
The masked agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, his lawyer stated in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday for his immediate release.
Reportedly, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked in an attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a student leader and negotiator for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, which organized protests against the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza and the university’s alleged complicity in those actions.
According to his petition, Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with any crime, which also states that his detention and petition had not been previously informed.
Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, argued in his petition that “Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife — who is a U.S. citizen — and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.”
The petition says the couple has “long been doxxed and smeared” on anonymously run, far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights.
Last month, Middle East Forum (MEF) a pro-Israel think tank that advocates for US policies aligned with Israel’s interests published an article at JNS, alleging Suri “actively spreads the [Hamas] terror group’s propaganda and promotes virulent antisemitism on social media.”
The petition also says that Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claimed that “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).”
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin said on X.
“Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” she alleged without citing any evidence.
Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, said in an interview that he had not been able to contact Suri as of Wednesday evening, according to the Politico report.
“We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad said.
“This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”
Meanwhile, a Georgetown spokesperson issued a statement stating, “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,” they urged.
According to Suri’s profile on the university website, he is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.
He is an interdisciplinary scholar who’s areas of interest are religion, violence and peace; ethnic conflicts and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia.
He completed his Ph.D. in Peace & Conflict Studies from Jamia Millia Islamia, with a thesis titled Transitional Democracy, Divided Societies, and Prospects for Peace: A Study of State Building in Afghanistan and Iraq, where he analyzed the complexities of introducing democracy in ethnically diverse societies and the challenges of state-building.
He has travelled extensively in the conflict zones of India, Pakistan, Balochistan in Iran, Iran, Turkey, Kurdish Areas in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and its southern region, Egypt and Palestine.
The Trump administration, known for its strong pro-Israel stance, intensified its crackdown on student activists accused of opposing American foreign policy in an attempt to suppress pro-Palestinian voices.
Earlier Ranjani Srinivasan, a doctoral candidate in urban planning at Columbia University, was forced to abandon her academic dreams and flee the United States, for her alleged ties to pro-Palestine demonstrations on the Columbia University campus.
However, Trump’s immigration officials have not provided any evidence to support their accusations of their alleged ties with Hamas.
