'Government abduction': Trump's DHS tries to deport Georgetown scholar legally in US
A Georgetown University researcher who hasn't been charged with a crime and has no criminal record was seized by federal agents this week, in what his lawyer described as "just another example of our government abducting people."
Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, on Monday night, Politico reported Wednesday. Suri is an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow who was studying and teaching on a student visa, according to the report.
He was informed by agents with the Department of Homeland Security that his visa was being revoked.
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Suri’s petition for release said he was placed in deportation proceedings under a rarely used immigration law enforcement mechanism that allows the head of the State Department to deport noncitizens if they're deemed a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, said his client was targeted because his wife is of Palestinian heritage and is not a U.S. citizen.
"A 2018 article about the couple published in the Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper, said Saleh’s father, Ahmed Yousef, served as a 'senior political adviser to the Hamas leadership,'" according to the report.
Furthermore, Ahmad said authorities believe he and his wife oppose the United States' support of Israel.
“We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad told the outlet in an interview. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”
President Donald Trump has explicitly said his administration is targeting people he refers to as "terrorist sympathizers." In multiple public statements, including on his social media platform, Trump vowed to "find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again."
His rhetoric has been tied to recent actions, including the arrest of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent U.S. resident who played a major role in protests that rocked Columbia University last year.