Big jolt for Trump govt as US judge halts deportation of Indian student Badar Khan Suri who was accused of ‘spreading Hamas propaganda’

Badar Khan Suri enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow in the US was facing deportation after federal authorities said he was "spreading Hamas propaganda" and has "close connections to a "suspected terrorist", who is a senior advisor to the group.

A US judge ordered that the Indian researcher at a top American university can not be removed from the country, following his arrest and threat of expulsion for alleged Hamas ties.

Badar Khan Suri enrolled as a postdoctoral fellow in the US was facing deportation after federal authorities said he was “spreading Hamas propaganda” and has “close connections to a “suspected terrorist”, who is a senior advisor to the group.

Badar Khan Suri is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that Suri, a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University, was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media”.

“Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas. The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025, that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable.”

A report in Politico said that Suri, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been “detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy.”

The report said that “masked agents” arrested Suri from outside his home in Virginia Monday night.

A petition filed by his lawyer Hassan Ahmad said that he was taken to a facility in Virginia and is “expected to be transferred soon to a detention centre in Texas.”