The pro-Palestine students caught up in Trump's war on liberal universities

The National

20-05-2025

Live updates: Follow the latest on Israel-Gaza Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University researcher detained because of his views on Gaza, has been released from custody in Texas after a judge ruled the US government overstepped by arresting him in March. A US district judge made the much-anticipated decision on Wednesday. Mr Suri was released on bond and will be able to return to Virginia. "After months of sorrow, loss, and pain, when I saw my kids, it was like an oasis in the desert, and in their arms I found my life again. It was a surreal experience," he said shortly after his release. Since President Donald Trump took office on January 20, his administration has turned a critical eye on students, scholars and professors expressing sympathy for Palestinians amid the continuing Israel-Gaza war. Non-citizens in the US on visas have been detained and threatened with deportation by federal authorities. Some are student protest organisers, others have simply written in support of Palestine. In Mr Suri's case, his marriage to someone who had expressed support for Palestine was sufficient for the government to arrest him. Pro-Palestinians are also being targeted by groups using artificial intelligence to expose them and report them to authorities. The State Department reportedly hasn't ruled out using AI to help it revoke the visas of international students accused of supporting Hamas, again, often without due process or a nuanced interpretation of what demonstrators may have said or done. The State Department has not provided current figures on how many visas it has revoked. In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at least 300. Here is a look at some of the most prominent cases. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate who was a leader in campus pro-Palestine protests last year, is being held in an immigration detention centre in Louisiana. He was arrested in New York on March 8, with video showing agents from the Department of Homeland Security taking him into custody without a warrant, handcuffing him and forcing him into an unmarked car. Shortly after his detention, Mr Trump wrote that Mr Khalil was a 'radical foreign pro-Hamas student'. Despite his legal team's arguments that Mr Khalil's right to free speech was violated and that he was apprehended without due process, Judge Jamee Comans disagreed. She said the government had demonstrated sufficiently Mr Khalil's presence in the US could have 'potentially serious foreign policy consequences', therefore the case met the legal threshold for deportation. Late last month, federal immigration authorities denied Mr Khalil's request for temporary release from detention to attend the birth of his first child. He has filed an appeal to try to prevent his deportation and the case remains under adjudication. Authorities in Vermont apprehended Mohsen Mahdawi on April 14. A student, Mr Mahdawi has been an outspoken critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and organised campus protests. He cofounded the Palestinian Student Union at Columbia with Mr Khalil. The State Department and Department of Homeland Security deemed Mr Mahdawi 'removable' under the Immigration and Nationality Act. It also said his actions could have 'serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise compelling US foreign policy interest'. He spent 16 days in detention until US District Judge Geoffrey Crawford raised doubts over the State Department's rationale for the arrest and detention. 'The two weeks of detention so far demonstrate great harm to a person who has been charged with no crime,' the judge said. Mr Mahdawi could still be deported depending on how things unfold in court, with US authorities appealing the Vermont judge's decision. He plans on starting his master's degree at Columbia beginning in the autumn. On March 25, Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to meet friends and break fast during Ramadan when masked agents surrounded her and took her into custody near her home in Massachusetts. The Department of Homeland Security accused Turkish student Ms Ozturk, 30, without providing evidence, of 'engaging in activities in support of Hamas', the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US government. Ms Ozturk, who is also a Fulbright Scholar, last year co-wrote an opinion piece in a student newspaper criticising Tufts's response to student calls to divest from companies with Israel ties and to 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide'. A federal judge on March 28 stopped her deportation after Ms Ozturk's lawyers filed a lawsuit saying her detention infringed her right to free speech and due process. After spending six weeks in a Louisiana detention centre, Ms Ozturk's legal team secured a major victory by convincing a judge to order her release on the grounds US federal authorities had not provided evidence to justify her arrest. It is expected the Trump administration will challenge the ruling. On March 17, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen studying at Georgetown University in Washington DC, was arrested at his Virginia home by the Department of Homeland Security. Department officials claimed Mr Suri 'has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior adviser to Hamas', and that Mr Rubio had determined that the scholar's activities 'rendered him deportable'. His lawyers have so far successfully argued for a lack of due process and charges to justify his deportation. In the weeks since his initial detention, demonstrators have gathered on Georgetown's campus in support of Mr Suri and the university's dean Joel Hellman issued a lengthy statement explaining his concern over the arrest and detention. As noted above, Mr Suri was released on bond on May 14.