Badar Khan Suri blasts 'shallow' Trump administration at immigration hearing - Middle East Eye

Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri on Tuesday slammed the Trump administration's arguments in immigration court as "specious" and "shallow" as it tries to make the case for his deportation.

Suri is a legal US resident with Indian citizenship and is married to a US citizen.

His case gained global attention after he became one of the earliest targets of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents 18 months ago, based on his speech supporting Palestinian rights. 

"The government's argument is very specious. It's very shallow. They want to talk about something, but it has no roots. They are saying that I'm antisemite, I'm anti this or that, but they're just saying it for the sake of... some political agenda," Suri told the media outside the courthouse in Annandale, Virginia.

He noted that his Jewish supporters had shown up to back him, and that they do not want their faith to be "weaponised" by the government. 

Nader Hashemi, the director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, where Suri was carrying out his post-doctoral research, told Middle East Eye on Tuesday that the case highlights the "deep anti-Palestinian nature" of the US government under President Donald Trump.

"No one knew who Badar Khan Suri was until the Trump administration, at the encouragement of extreme right-wing [Benjamin] Netanyahu supporters, targeted Badar Khan Suri for deportation," he said.

Suri, he added, was just a pretence.

"The real target here is his wife, but because she's an American citizen, the Trump administration can't target her, so in order to harass his wife, who's from Gaza, they've gone after her husband," Hashemi said. 

In an article in late February 2025, the pro-Israel conservative outfit Middle East Forum (MEF) said it had discovered that Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former senior political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, the former leader of Hamas, who is said to have been critical of Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. Saleh had also been added to the pro-Israel blacklisting site Canary Mission, where her former employment at Al Jazeera as well as her city of birth, Gaza City, was cited "as support for her alleged ties with Hamas". 

Just hours after news broke of the case against Suri, MEF claimed credit for his arrest. 

Suri was taken away by masked men outside his home on 17 March 2025 in a suburb of Washington, DC.

The men, who turned out to be federal agents, said his visa was revoked on the orders of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio for “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media".

Suri remained in an ICE detention centre in Alvaredo, Texas, for two months, in conditions he described as overcrowded and unsanitary. 

A federal judge ordered his release on 14 May 2025.

His case, challenging the government’s attempts to deport him for his political views, continues while Suri is reunited with his family, who live in Virginia. 

"I have worked for [the] peace process all my life, 20 years now, and I know this is a tough thing. So I am ready for these challenges, and I'm very hopeful that justice will prevail," Suri said outside the courthouse.

"The administration has falsely argued that Dr Khan Suri’s presence in the United States 'compromises a compelling foreign policy interest' and therefore, under a rarely used section of the Immigration and Nationality Act, it has the right to deport him," the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Suri, previously said in a statement. 

But in July, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to detain him again, and affirmed a lower court ruling that ordered his release on bail as his case proceeded.

Suri is now in a two-tiered legal fight: as his federal habeas case continues, his immigration case is proceeding on a separate track in the government-run immigration court, which falls under the Department of Justice and answers to the US Attorney General.

The term "habeas" stems from "habeas corpus", which is of Latin origin. In 13th-century England, it was used to prevent the king from disappearing people without due process. Today, it applies to everyone on US territory, citizen or not. 

Hashemi, who was inside the courtroom on Tuesday, told MEE he's feeling optimistic.

"I'm feeling confident that there's a lot of public outrage over the abuse of power that the Trump administration has engaged in, and this has drawn the ire of... a lot of concerned American citizens," he said.

"It's not just about the rights of one post-doctoral fellow in Georgetown. His case now is about the future of democracy in the United States."

The immigration judge is likely to make a decision this week, as soon as Tuesday evening local time.