TOI correspondent from Washington: US immigration authorities have detained an Indian post-doctoral researcher studying and teaching at Washington DC’s Georgetown University and flagged him for deportation for his pro-Hamas activism they say violated terms of his exchange visitor visa.
Badar Khan Suri, a post-graduate from Delhi’s Jamia Millia, whose wife Maphaz Saleh is Palestinian, was taken from his home in Rosslyn just outside Washington DC on Monday and transferred to Louisiana pending deportation proceedings, according to the college newspaper The Hoya.
Maphaz’s father Ahmed Yousef is said to be a senior political advisor to Hamas, which the US has designated as a terrorist organisation.
The couple met in Gaza when Suri was part of a humanitarian convoy in 2011. They married in 2014, after which Maphaz moved to Delhi and enrolled at Jamia Millia eventually earning a master’s degree in conflict analysis and peace-building from the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace & Conflict Resolution.
They came to the US sometime after 2020 following Suri’s PhD; while he enrolled as a Peace & Conflict Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), Maphaz is also pursuing a master’s degree at the School of Foreign Service’s (SFS) Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Suri is currently teaching a class on majoritarianism and minority rights in South Asia and researching peace-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Homeland Security officials said Suri was arrested under a US law that allows deportation of noncitizens whom “the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” He was accused of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” with “close connections” to a senior advisor to Hamas.
Georgetown University said it was not aware of Suri engaging in any illegal activity and had not received a reason for his detention. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly,” a university spokesperson said.
Suri’s lawyer Hassan Ahmad suggested that his client had been abducted, saying he had no criminal record and nor has be been charged with any crime. “Seeing our government abduct and jail another innocent person is beyond contemptible. And if an accomplished scholar who focuses on conflict resolution is whom the government decides is bad for foreign policy, then perhaps the problem is with the government, not the scholar.” the attorney Hassan Ahmad, said in a statement.
A brief scrutiny of Suri’s social media posts, which were infrequent, showed trenchant criticism of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, including India’s support for Israel. In a June 6, 2024 post, Suri mocked the Modi government for its purported support for Israel and abandonment of Palestine after a Palestinian network posted a video of a missile fragment with an India imprint on it.
“From being an ally of Palestinians, to enabler if a genocide. What a disgrace for Made in India, to supply missiles to Israel so that Palestinian children can be butchered. Change of values for blood money. Shame,” he wrote.
While Suri was identified by Georgetown University as an Indian national, The Hoya said “Maphaz was a US citizen, raising questions in the MAGA sphere as to how the daughter of a Hamas representative came to acquire American citizenship.”