A scholar at Georgetown University in the United States has been arrested and faces deportation for his ties to Hamas and his statements in which he repeatedly praised the Palestinian terrorist group.
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and a fellow at the university’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, was detained by US immigration authorities on March 17th. His arrest follows a damning exposé published in the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) and the Middle East Forum (MEF), where Suri is said to “actively spreads the [Hamas] terror group’s propaganda and promotes virulent antisemitism on social media.“
The academic, who maintains his position as a postdoctoral fellow at the center funded by Saudi tycoon Alwaleed bin Talal, was arrested under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. This act allows for the deportation of “[a]n alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.“
The arrest and deportation proceedings against Suri are part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to identify and arrest foreign nationals accused of spreading extremism and having ties with terrorist groups such as Hamas. Before Suri’s detention, Mahmood Khalid, a Palestinian student and activist at Columbia University, was arrested by US immigration authorities on March 8th for his involvement in pro-Palestinian campus protests in 2024.
The Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding issued a statement condemning Suri’s arrest, arguing that his arrest “must be understood in the context of the Trump Administration’s foreign and domestic policies,“ even calling it a “U.S. support for genocide abroad and McCarthyism at home.“
However, neither the center nor the university addressed the accusations against Suri. He previously traveled to Syria and Iran as part of the “Asia to Gaza Solidarity Caravan,“ an activist initiative organized in 2010 intended to support Gaza during Hamas rule.
In addition, Suri actively shared pro-Hamas content on social media and even promoted Hamas propaganda and antisemitism. For instance, he denied well-documented reports of atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent Israeli citizens and even foreigners following the brutal October 7 attacks in 2023, where Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of Israelis and foreign nationals hostage.
Suri shared another post stating his support for Hamas’s war against Israel, adding that the terrorist group must sustain its resistance. He even posted a video showing Hamas holding Israeli children hostage and saying, “This is how Hamas men dealt with kids on Oct. 7,“ lending legitimacy to Hamas’s horrible actions.
But Suri did not just actively promote Hamas propaganda. He also had ties to the terrorist organization through his marriage to Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh, daughter of longtime senior Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef. Saleh is a graduate student at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Yousef is not only a senior figure at Hamas but also an adviser to slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
“Unlike Georgetown University, which offered no acknowledgment or response to evidence of Suri’s Hamas links, the Trump administration took decisive action in preventing the United States from becoming a haven for extremists hiding behind academic credentials,“ Anna Stanley, who wrote the report for the Middle East Forum and JNS, said. “The American people deserve universities free from terrorist sympathizers, and this deportation sends a strong message: those who support terror will find no sanctuary in our institutions.“
