'Government abducting people': Masked DHS agents take scholar into custody without charges

19 March

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Another academic has been arrested by President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on legally dubious grounds, according to a new report.

Politico reported Wednesday that Indian national Dr. Badar Khan Suri was recently arrested outside of his Virginia home by "masked agents" who said they were with the DHS. Suri — who is in the United States legally on a student visa and who is married to a U.S. citizen — was not charged with any crime and has no criminal record, yet he is being targeted for deportation and awaiting transfer to Texas.

Suri is being put into deportation proceedings under the same vaguely worded statute that the Trump administration invoked after it arrested Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil (a legal permanent resident and Columbia University graduate student who led pro-Palestine protests last year). That statute claims that an administration has the authority to deport any foreign-born resident who it suspects could be a threat to U.S. foreign policy.

“We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Hassan Ahmad, who is Suri's lawyer, told Politico. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”

Ahmad is alleging that Suri is being targeted because his wife, Mapheze Saleh, is of Palestinian heritage and that the couple have been outspoken about the United States' continued support of Israel. He also told Politico that the two have been repeatedly doxxed on far-right websites over their criticism of the Israeli government. The Hindustan Times (one of the largest English-language newspapers in India) reported in a 2018 article that Saleh's father, Ahmed Yousef, was once a "senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership."

According to his faculty page on the Georgetown University website, Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His LinkedIn profile shows that he has a Ph.D. in peace and conflict studies from an Indian university. A Georgetown University spokesperson told Politico in a statement that Suri was "duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan."

“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention," the spokesperson continued. "We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

Click here to read Politico's article in its entirety.

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