Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, has been detained by the United States of America's immigration authorities, only days after another Indian national's student visa was revoked due to allegations of supporting Hamas.
The US government accuses Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral scholar, of allegedly having ties to the Islamic Resistance Movement or Hamas, a Palestinian nationalist group that has been governing the Gaza Strip of the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 2007, according to a Politico report that cites court documents.
Hamas is recognised as a terrorist organisation by the US and several other Western countries.
This development comes mere days after the Trump administration withdrew the student visa of Columbia University student Ranjani Srinivasan. On March 11, Srinivasan elected to "self deport" because of fear of being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), The Indian Express reports.
Srinivasan's case received international attention as part of the Trump administration's larger clampdown on pro-Palestine student demonstrators.
Several students and activists who participated in pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University and other US campuses in the spring of 2024 have faced legal action in the last week.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security, stated that Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined on Saturday that Suri's visa should be terminated due to foreign policy concerns. Suri is married to an American citizen of Palestinian descent.
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin wrote on X, adding, “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”
Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University's Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding. In 2020, he earned his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi.
Suri is presently being held in Alexandria, Louisiana, awaiting his immigration court appearance, according to Reuters.
