The Indian student detained in the US to be deported to India is a Green Card holder. Badar Khan Suri, who is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in Washington DC, earlier studied at Delhi’s Jamia Milia Islamia university. Suri’s lawyer alleges that the action against him was because he has a Palestinian spouse. In fact, Gaza and Palestine are very closely associated with Suri’s story.
Suri, a former student of Jamia Millia Islamia, was teaching “Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia” and had a PhD in peace and conflict studies from India, as per the Georgetown University website.
Masked agents from the Department of Homeland Security arrested Suri from his Arlington, Virginia, home and told him that his visa had been revoked.
Last week, an Indian student at Columbia University self-deported herself to Canada after agents reached her over her pro-Palestinian activities on campus.
Ranjani Srinivasan was in the US on an F-1 student visa. According to the DHS, Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation.
The action against Srinivasan and Badar Khan Suri is part of the wider Trump administration to end anti-semitic and pro-radical activities on US university campuses.
WHY IS BADAR KHAN SURI BEING DEPORTED TO INDIA?
Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, said Suri had “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist” and was spreading Hamas propaganda on campus.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist organisation in the US.
“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” McLaughlin posted on X.
Hassan Ahmad, Suri’s lawyer, said in his petition that he was “being punished because of the Palestinian heritage of his wife, and because the government suspects that he and his wife oppose US foreign policy toward Israel”, according to Politico.
Maphaz Ahmad Yousef, Suri’s wife, is originally from Gaza but an American citizen now. The two got married on January 1, 2014, according to a Hindustan Times report.
Suri, a Delhiite and then student of Jamia, was part of an international aid convoy to Gaza in 2011 where he met Yousef, according to the report. She was a translator working with the aid group.
“She had this enormous interest in India, and asked me endless questions about our country,” Suri told HT in 2018.
After both their families consented, their marriage was to be solemnised in Gaza in December 2013, but Suri and his family couldn’t make it to the Palestinian territory because of a crisis in Egypt.
They ultimately got married in January 2014 in Delhi.
Suri’s father-in-law, Ahamed Yousef, was a former deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government in Gaza and later went on to head the House of Wisdom Institute (HoW) for conflict resolution, according to the HT report.
In fact, Ahamed Yousef is known as “Hamas’s gate to the west”.
Suri and Yousef’s son is called Arafat.
“I wanted to name my son either Gandhi or Arafat, but finally I chose Arafat,” Yousef told HT.
DHA’s Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X, “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”
Most likely, she was alluding to Suri’s father-in-law.
“The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i),” she added.
Suri was taken to a facility in Virginia and was expected to be transferred to a detention centre in Texas, according to reports. An online locator for immigration detainees, according to Politico, showed him at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “staging” centre at the Alexandria, Louisiana, airport.
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