Judge orders release of Georgetown scholar Trump admin is seeking to deport
U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles said the government offered no evidence that Indian-born Badar Khan Suri posed a danger to the community. She also said his arrest likely violated his free-speech rights as well as his rights to freedom of association with his Palestinian-American wife.
'The First Amendment extends to non-citizens and doesn't distinguish between citizens and non-citizens,' Giles said during a hearing in her Alexandria courtroom.
In March, masked ICE agents surrounded and detained Khan Suri in Arlington, Virginia, amid a broader crackdown on foreign academics viewed by the Trump administration as espousing anti-Israel or pro-Palestine views. He is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and was teaching a class on 'Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia.'
Though Khan Suri's attorney quickly sued to keep him in Virginia and to seek his release from custody, federal agents transferred him within hours to Louisiana and then Texas.
Giles' ruling is the third federal court decision in recent days to order the release of scholars targeted in the Trump administration's unprecedented deportation effort. Federal judges in Vermont also ordered the release of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk and Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi.
All three had their visas revoked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who determined that their presence in the country was contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests.
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