US judge orders release of Indian scholar Badar Khan Suri from immigration detention

An Indian academic, Badar Khan Suri, detained during the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students, has been ordered released by a federal judge in Virginia.The judge said his case raised serious constitutional concerns.Badar Khan Suri, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, had been held in an immigration detention centre in Texas and is facing deportation. But on Wednesday, US district judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled that he could return home to his family in Virginia while his legal challenge proceeds.Khan Suri was arrested on March 17 by masked plainclothes officers outside his home in Arlington, Virginia. His lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union say he was moved rapidly to Louisiana and then Texas, without being allowed to contact his family or lawyer.The Trump administration revoked his visa, citing social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. Officials accused him of supporting Hamas, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States.However, judge Giles said the academic’s online statements appeared to be “protected political speech.” She added, “Speech regarding the conflict there and opposing Israel’s military campaign is likely protected political speech.”

She went on: “The First Amendment does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens.” The judge also considered the needs of Khan Suri’s young children and said she did not believe he posed any danger to the community.Before his detention, Khan Suri was teaching a course on majority and minority rights in South Asia and had hoped to continue a career in academia. He came to the US in 2022 on a J-1 visa and lives in Virginia with his wife, Saleh, and their three children, including five-year-old twins.Government lawyers tried to move the case to Texas, arguing the detention in Virginia was temporary. But the judge found their reasoning inconsistent, noting that Khan Suri was held in overcrowded conditions in Texas and slept on a plastic cot on the floor.His lawyers argued the relocation was aimed at placing the case in a more conservative court, a claim the judge appeared to agree with.