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May 14 (UPI) — U.S. District Judge Patricia Giles on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of Indian national and Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri. He had been held by ICE for two months despite not having been charged with a crime.
Suri was in the United States on an academic visa. He was arrested March 17 by masked ICE agents and sent to a Texas detention immigration detention facility.
Judge Giles ordered Suri released without bond on condition that he maintain a residence in Virginia and attend hearings in his case in person. For Texas immigration hearings, Suri can attend virtually.
The judge said at Suri’s hearing his release is “in the public interest to disrupt the chilling effect on protected speech.”
Suri’s defense lawyers alleged he was singled out for revocation of his visa and deportation “based on his family connections and constitutionally protected speech.”
Suri has not been charged with a crime. He was taken by ICE for his social media posts supporting Palestinians.
Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin cited the posts as she claimed without including concrete evidence that Suri allegedly had connections to a senior adviser of Hamas.
Suri said in an April statement that he had “never even been to a protest.”
His release petition argued that he was likely targeted by the Trump administration due to his marriage to a U.S. citizen of Palestinian origin.
Also, Suri’s father-in-law Ahmed Yousef was an adviser to Hamas over a decade ago.
Giles ruled in March that Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order.”
Suri’s release order follows court-ordered releases from ICE custody of fellow immigrant academics Mohsen Mahdawi, a Columbia University Palestinian student, and Tufts University student Rumseya Ozturk.
Attorneys representing Suri said during his detention he was transferred to five different facilities across three states. They said he at one point slept in a room with no bed and a TV blaring almost all day for nearly two weeks.
In a letter to his lawyers, Suri wrote, “My only ‘crimes’ making me a ‘national security threat’ are my marriage to a United States citizen of Palestinian origin and my support for the Palestinian cause.”