Judge rules Trump admin must release son-in-law of Hamas official from ICE custody

A federal judge in Virginia has ordered that the Trump administration release Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University academic and the son-in-law of a senior Hamas official. 

Khan Suri, an Indian national, was arrested at his home in Virginia in March by ICE and was subsequently moved to Louisiana and then Texas, where he has been detained, the Wall Street Journal reported. US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles granted a request after a two-hour court hearing on Wednesday to release Khan Suri from custody as he challenges his detention.

Giles said that the Trump administration has not presented any evidence that Khan Suri is a danger to the public, and that he is likely to prevail on his arguments that he is facing retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment. 

In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination that "Suri's activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable" under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Khan Suri has been in the US as a visiting scholar, entering the country in December 2022 on a J-1 visa, which is used for exchange visitor programs. He obtained the visa to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgetown.

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said Khan Suri was "actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media," and added that he has "close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas." 

Khan Suri’s attorneys said that he has never participated in protests and is not an activist, but has posted a few times on social media to criticize the death toll in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war continues and to criticize the US’s role in the conflict.  

The attorneys said that the retaliation is also for the family ties of his wife, Palestinian-American Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh. Her father, Ahmed Yousef, worked as a political advisor to Gaza’s prime minister until 2010 and retired from civil service. Khan Suri does not speak regularly with his father-in-law, they said, and hasn’t seen him in person since 2013.