An Indian national enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow in the US has been detained by federal immigration authorities for allegedly opposing America’s foreign policy towards Israel, according to reports.
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., was reportedly arrested by masked agents outside his Virginia home on Monday night.
He had been studying and teaching on a student visa.
As per a Politico report, Suri’s detainment is part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on student activists accused of opposing US foreign policy.
New: 🚨 DHS has confirmed the arrest of Badar Khan Suri, an Indian student at Georgetown.
— Tom Homan – Border Czar MAGA News Reports (@TomHoman_) March 20, 2025
You decide America:🚨 Deport of keep?
He has been spreading anti American propaganda and has ties to a known senior adviser to Hamas.
DHS will deport him the same way as Mahmoud Khalil. pic.twitter.com/OuarbxbtWR
He is currently being held at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, awaiting an immigration hearing, as confirmed by his lawyer, Hassan Ahmad.
Suri’s detention comes amid efforts by the Trump administration to deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who participated in protests against Israel and the Gaza conflict. Both cases involve the use of immigration law to address perceived “foreign policy consequences”.
Ahmad criticized the government’s actions. “Seeing our government abduct and jail another innocent person is beyond contemptible,” Ahmad said, as quoted by NBC News. “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.”
