A Virginia federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Georgetown academic Badar Khan Suri from Ice detention during a hearing on Wednesday.
Khan Suri was among several individuals legally studying in the US that have been targeted by the Trump administration for their pro-Palestinian activism. He has spent two months in detention.
US district judge Patricia Giles in Alexandria, Virginia, said that the ruling is effective immediately with no conditions and no bond.
The Trump administration had ordered the detention of Khan Suri, a citizen of India, on 17 March. He was previously being held at an immigration prison in Alvarado, Texas.
Immigration officials revoked his J-1 student visa, alleging his father-in-law was an adviser to Hamas officials more than a decade ago in addition to claims that he was “deportable” because of his posts on social media in support of Palestine.
Khan Suri, who is married to a Palestinian American US citizen, Mapheze Saleh, is a senior postdoctoral fellow at the institution’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). Many students and alumni of the institution signed a letter opposing his detention by Ice.
Giles prohibited federal officials in March from deporting the postdoctoral fellow after his wife filed an emergency court request to prevent deportation.
