Indian Scholar Badar Khan Suri to be deported amid allegations of pro-Hamas activities

The detained Indian student to be deported to India is a Green Card holder. Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Washington DC's Georgetown University, had studied at Delhi's Jamia Milia Islamia University previously. Suri's lawyer argues that the action has been taken against him because he happens to have a Palestinian spouse. Gaza and Palestine, indeed, have the most intimate connection with Suri's narrative.

Suri, a past student of Jamia Millia Islamia, was instructing "Majoritarianism and Minority Rights in South Asia" and possessed a PhD in peace and conflict studies from India, according to the Georgetown University website. Masked Department of Homeland Security agents picked up Suri from his Arlington, Virginia residence and informed him his visa was canceled.

Last week, a Columbia University Indian student self-deported to Canada after agents contacted her over her pro-Palestinian activism on campus. Ranjani Srinivasan was in the US on an F-1 student visa. The DHS said Srinivasan was engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a terrorist organization designated by the US.

The move against Srinivasan and Badar Khan Suri forms part of the broader Trump administration effort to stop anti-semitic and pro-radical operations on US university campuses.

WHY IS BADAR KHAN SURI BEING SENT BACK TO INDIA?

Tricia McLaughlin, an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, stated that Suri had "close associations with a known or suspected terrorist" and was propagating Hamas propaganda within the university.

Hamas has been listed as a terrorist organization in the US.

"Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively propagating Hamas propaganda and inciting antisemitism on social media," McLaughlin shared on X.

Hassan Ahmad, the attorney for Suri, explained 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", as reported by Politico.

Maphaz Ahmad Yousef is Suri's wife, a native of Gaza turned American citizen. The two married on January 1, 2014, as per a Hindustan Times report. Suri, the Delhiite and former Jamia student, had traveled as a member of an international aid mission to Gaza in 2011 where he first met Yousef, as per the report. She was a translator employed with the aid organization.

"She had this great interest in India, and quizzed me on our country endlessly," Suri had explained to HT in 2018.

Both families had agreed, that their marriage was to be formalized in Gaza in December 2013, but Suri and his family were unable to reach the Palestinian land due to an Egypt crisis.

They eventually wedded in January 2014 in Delhi.

Suri's father-in-law, Ahamed Yousef, was also a former Hamas government deputy foreign minister and afterward became the director of the House of Wisdom Institute (HoW) for conflict resolution, reports the HT.

Ahamed Yousef is popularly referred to as "Hamas's Gate to the West".

Suri and Yousef's son is named Arafat.

"I wished to name my son either Gandhi or Arafat, but ultimately I opted for Arafat," Yousef informed HT.

DHA's Tricia McLaughlin stated in a post on X, "Suri has close associations with a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas."

Most likely, she was referring to Suri's father-in-law.

"The Secretary of State determined on March 15, 2025, that Suri's activities and presence in the United States made him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i)," she continued.

Suri was removed to a center in Virginia and was set to be sent to a detention center in Texas, reports said. An online tracker of immigration detainees, Politico reported, indicated him at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "staging" facility at the Alexandria, Louisiana, airport.