A Georgetown fellow arrested in Rosslyn last month remains in immigration custody and is getting treated as a “high-security” detainee, new court filings say.
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen detained on the basis of his and his family’s ties to Palestine, has variously been denied food, a bed, clean clothing and contact with his family since March 17, his lawyers said in a federal court filing yesterday (Tuesday).
Khan Suri was in the United States on an exchange visa and hasn’t been accused of committing any crimes. However, he has been targeted for his pro-Palestinian posts on social media and his wife and father-in-law’s connections to Gaza.
In court filings, the Department of Homeland Security has cited its authority to deport non-citizens whose “presence or activities … would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Khan Suri is among several activists and students that immigration enforcement has arrested on these grounds.
“Suri — a non-immigrant visitor present in the country for just about two years — has limited rights under the First Amendment in this context,” federal lawyers wrote last week in response to a petition for his release. “The Government has lawful bases for seeking removal. And the Court should not second-guess the government’s discretionary determinations about foreign policy matters.”
In a statement yesterday, Khan Suri — who is employed as an adjunct professor on Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia — said that he has never even attended a protest.
Nevertheless, a petition for relief says he “was informed that he is classified as high-security based on his association with a known criminal group — presumably based on Respondents’ unfounded claims of his connections to Hamas.”
“I came to the U.S. to work and raise my family: I go to work, come home late, and still they came and took me and broke my family,” Khan Suri said in a press release from the Virginia ACLU, which is one of several civil rights organizations representing his case. “In my work, I’ve seen lots of injustice. I just didn’t think it would happen to me here.”
Khan Suri’s arrest and detainment
Video of Khan Suri’s March 17 arrest, also released yesterday, shows him speaking with masked immigration officers outside his Rosslyn apartment.
After taking Khan Suri’s passport and DS-2019 form from his wife, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transported him first to a field office in Chantilly, then to Farmville Detention Center in central Virginia, then to an ICE office in Richmond.
He was then taken aboard an airplane bound for Louisiana, before finally arriving at a detention center in Alvarado, Texas on March 21.
For over a week, court documents claim, Khan Suri was not assigned a bed in a dorm, but was instead housed in a “TV room” where television plays every day from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. He was given a “thin plastic mattress” and, for several days, was refused a Quran, halal food or a prayer mat, his attorneys say.
He has been issued “a bright red uniform, usually reserved for detained individuals classified as high security based on their criminal history, alleged affiliations to criminal organizations, or institutional records.”
“Due to his classification and security protocols at the facility, Dr. Khan Suri is only permitted two hours per week of recreation,” says a petition and complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. “His movement within the facility is severely limited — he is not permitted to work or spend more time outside his dorm.”
At various points in the detainment process, Khan Suri’s attorneys say he was denied food and water after fasting throughout the day in observance of Ramadan, denied permission to call his wife and “given used, dirty underclothing to wear.”
All of this, his lawyers say, has taken a substantial toll on his wife and three children back in Rosslyn.
“His children keep asking when their father will come home,” the filing says. “Dr. Khan Suri normally holds his older son every night at bedtime, helping him fall asleep. Lately, his son has been crying uncontrollably and has stopped speaking. He is worried especially about his older son.”
Lawyers and local activists respond
Khan Suri’s attorneys are currently seeking to return him to Virginia and have him released on bond.
They argue that the government’s targeting of him and other Palestinian sympathizers violates their First Amendment right to free speech and Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Moreover, they say the Trump administration’s interpretation of “adverse foreign policy consequences” is “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, contrary to constitutional right, contrary to to law, and in excess of statutory jurisdiction.”
Federal lawyers, meanwhile, are seeking to have Khan Suri’s petition for release transferred to Texas and dismissed. They note that in this context, the law sets a high bar for petitions for bail — requiring “extraordinary circumstances” and “substantial constitutional claims” with “a high probability of success.”
Back in Arlington, meanwhile, pro-Palestinian activists have taken up the Georgetown fellow’s arrest as a rallying cry.
On March 22, just three days after Politico reported on Khan Suri’s detainment, over two dozen Virginia, D.C. and Maryland groups co-signed a letter seeking to have the Arlington County Board adopt stronger stances on ICE and the conflict in Gaza.
They demanded that the County Board end voluntary cooperation between the Arlington County Police Department and ICE, divest county resources and retirement accounts from companies profiting from the war, adopt a resolution calling for a ceasefire, and change its resolution defining antisemitism.
“As this administration expands its authoritarian violence, Arlington County officials have yet to meet the moment with the courage and leadership our community needs,” the groups wrote. “We, the undersigned organizations, demand Arlington County’s elected officials protect their residents and stand up to the Trump administration’s conspicuous display of authoritarianism.”
About 150 Georgetown students and faculty participated in a March 25 walkout that the Georgetown chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine organized. Over 1,600 people have also signed a Georgetown FSJP letter calling for Khan Suri’s release.
Astha Sharma Pokharel — a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the groups representing Khan Suri — argued Khan Suri’s arrest raises concerns about constitutional protections for all U.S. residents.
“The Trump administration is trying to send a message that if you disagree with the U.S. government, you’ll be punished,” Pokharel said in a press release. “Noncitizens have every right to express political ideas, including support for Palestinian rights. And no one should be targeted for who they’ve married. If they can do this to Dr. Khan Suri or Mahmoud Khalil, they can do this to any of us.”
Khan Suri’s next hearing is scheduled for May 1.
Photo via Virginia ACLU/Instagram
