Judge says Georgetown student can be released from immigration detention as case proceeds

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered that a Georgetown scholar from India be released from immigration detention after he was detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign college students.

Badar Khan Suri, who is being held in Texas, will go home to his family in Virginia while he awaits the outcome of his petition against the Trump administration for wrongful arrest and detention in violation of the First Amendment and other constitutional rights. He’s also facing deportation proceedings in an immigration court in Texas.

Before ordering his release, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles in Alexandria said she was releasing him because she felt that Khan Suri had substantial constitutional claims against the Trump administration. She also considered the needs of his family and said she didn’t believe he was a danger to the community.

The Trump administration had said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

“Speech regarding the conflict there and opposing Israel’s military campaign is likely protected political speech,” Giles said. “And thus he was likely engaging in protected speech.”

The judge added: “The First Amendment does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens”

Khan Suri was arrested by masked, plain-clothed officers on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia.

By the time a petition had been filed to keep his case in Virginia, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, Khan Suri’s attorneys said. A few days later, he was moved again to Texas.

Before Wednesday’s hearing, U.S. attorneys argued that Khan Suri’s case should be moved from Virginia to Texas because the petition was filed after the scholar had already left the state. They said filing his case in Texas is a “relatively straightforward application of well-settled law.”

The Trump administration said it quickly moved Khan Suri from a facility in Farmville, Virginia, because it was overcrowded and a nearby detention center in Caroline County had “no available beds and only had limited emergency bedspace.”

But the judge denied the government’s request, observing in an opinion memo that after landing in Texas, Khan Suri had to sleep on a plastic cot on the floor of an overcrowded detention center in Texas and, according to his attorneys, he now sleeps on a bed in an overcrowded dormitory with about 50 other people.

Giles agreed with Khan Suri’s attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued that it had appeared the real reason he was moved to Texas was to bring the case before a more conservative court.

The government’s representations, Giles wrote, “are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the fact that Prairieland Detention Center, where Petitioner (Khan Suri) is currently held, is overcrowded.”

Khan Suri, an Indian citizen, came to the U.S. in 2022 through a J-1 visa, working at Georgetown as a visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow. He and wife Saleh have three children: a 9-year-old son and 5-year-old twins.

Before his arrest, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, according to court records. The filings said he hoped to become a professor and embark on a career in academia.