US judge blocks deportation of India-born researcher detained over Hamas links

Washington/New Delhi: A US federal judge has ordered the Trump administration not to proceed, for now, with the deportation an Indian-born Georgetown researcher who was arrested for his alleged anti-Semitic social media posts and close ties with a known senior advisor to Hamas.

US District Judge Patricia Giles issued the brief directive on Thursday, declaring that Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow from Georgetown University, “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the Court issues a contrary order”, Politico reported.

Giles, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said the order was needed to ensure that the court can resolve a petition Suri filed seeking his release.

The judge issued the order shortly after Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, said in a sworn court declaration that the couple has no ties to Hamas, despite her father’s former high-level role in Gaza’s government.

Badar Khan Suri, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, was arrested by masked agents outside his home in the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night.

Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, has argued in his petition that Suri is being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife — who is a US citizen — and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose US foreign policy toward Israel.

Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas” and once worked for Al Jazeera.

Mapheze Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, is reported to have served as a “senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership.”

The US designated the Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1997.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio set in motion Suri’s detention by signing a determination last week that Suri’s presence in the US jeopardizes US foreign policy interests, a Homeland Security spokesperson said.

Saleh, who was born in Missouri in 1990 before moving to Gaza at age five, said Suri has only met her father, Ahmed Yousef, twice — once on a humanitarian trip Suri attended in 2011, the first time he met Saleh as well, and once in 2012 or 2013, when Suri asked Yousef for permission to marry his daughter.

“Badar has only met my father on those two occasions and hasn’t seen him since,” Saleh said in her written declaration, which she submitted to the court under penalty of perjury.

Suri was moved to Alexandria, Louisiana, soon after his arrest, according to court filings and an online locator for immigration detainees.

Suri’s lawyers argued in court filings that his transfer to Louisiana is “seemingly retaliatory” and that his detention is the result of his and his wife’s advocacy for Palestinian rights.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that Suri’s visa should be cancelled for foreign policy reasons.

“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin wrote on X. “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”