The US government said it was deemed “enforceable” for detaining Indian citizens studying and teaching at Georgetown University and violating student visa conditions.
His lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, said Indian national Badar Khan Sri was detained at his home in Roslyn, Virginia on Monday night. Sri was “waiting the court date at the immigration court in Alexandria, Louisiana,” Ahmad said. Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Sri is “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media.” McLaughlin did not provide any evidence to support his claim.
McLaughlin added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio deemed Suri “deportable.”
Earlier this month, Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University who led Palestinian parent-child training on campus, was detained by the Trump administration, which sought to deport him. Both men were deemed deportable under the same law, but Suri studied in the US on a J-1 student visa, while Halil had a green card.
“Suri has close ties with known or suspected terrorists, a senior adviser to Hamas,” Homeland Security spokeswoman McLaughlin said in a statement posted on social media.
Politico, who first reported news of Suri's detention, said that according to the lawsuit filed by Ahmad, Suri has no criminal history and has not been charged with a crime.
Georgetown University, where Suri was a fellow postdoc, said in a statement that he was “engaged in illegal activities and that he had not received any reason for his detention.”
In her statement, McLaughlin accused Suri of “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism on social media” without providing evidence.
Ahmad said Suri denied all allegations made in Ms McLaughlin's statement. He believed that the charges against Suri “apparently based on who his stepfather was,” but he believed he was still studying the case.
“To see our government acquiring and jailing another innocent person is not lightly empty,” Ahmad said in a text message.
