Washington, DC – Nader Hashemi, professor of Islamic politics and policy at the University of Georgetown, was a vocal critic of efforts to silence demonstrators and pro-Palestine academics in the midst of the War of Israel in Gaza.
These efforts have reached new heights under the administration of President Donald Trump, who took the extraordinary measure of detention and research last week to deport the student of the University of Columbia, Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident married to an American citizen.
Then, the immigration authorities came for one of Hashemi’s own students. Earlier this week, the agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholarship holder at Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian understanding, which Hashemi directs.
“It is shocking, and it sort of confirms our worst fears that authoritarian repression in American universities is developing under the Trump administration,” said Hashemi.
Groups of civil freedoms and the rights observers have decried – and disputed – the attempted eviction of Khalil, which the Haches and other observers describe as an extension of the anti -Palestinian biases in the American government.
This often involved confusing anti-Jewish feeling and support for Hamas, that the United States categorized a “terrorist organization”, with statements criticizing Israeli military action or support for Palestinians, they say.
But Hashemi and his colleagues see the targeting of Suri, which is in the United States on a student visa, as going a little further, since it was detained not for public demonstrations but for his alleged personal opinions.
Khaled Elgindy, a academic invited to Georgetown who focuses on Palestinian-Israeli affairs, said that the efforts of application of the Trump administration seem to enter “a different field with this case”, extending beyond the holders of student visa and American residents sanctioned for their protest activity.
“This person seems to have been targeted, not for his activism,” he said, “but simply for being suspected of having contained certain points of view.”
“Disapporable consequences of foreign policy”
For its part, the American Department of Internal Security confirmed on Wednesday that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio had approved the expulsion of Suri.
Tricia McLaughlin spokesperson said Rubio had made the decision by quoting the same law used to justify Khalil’s expulsion attempt.
This is a provision of the 1952 immigration and nationality law which gave the Secretary of State the power to suppress any non-citizen whose presence in the United States is considered “unfavorable consequences of foreign policy”.
McLaughlin accused Suri of “actively disseminating Hamas propaganda and promoting anti -Semitism on social networks”, without providing more details. The Ministry of Internal Security did not respond to an additional information request in Tel Aviv Tribune.
She also said that Suri “has close ties with a known or suspected terrorist, who is a main advisor to Hamas”.
On Wednesday, Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, confirmed in Tel Aviv Tribune that she was an American citizen. Meanwhile, Ahmed Yousef, former assassination advisor, Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to the New York Times that Suri was his son -in -law.
Yousef told the newspaper that he had left his position in the Hamas political wing over ten years ago and had publicly criticized the group’s decision to attack Israel on October 7, 2023. He said that Suri was not involved in “political activism”, even less the support of Hamas.
Suri refused allegations against him, said his lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, in the American media. His legal team, which includes the Virginia office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed a request for the American district court of the Oriental District of Virginia requesting its release.
He stayed in an American immigration and customs detention center in Louisiana on Thursday.
In a press release on Wednesday, Georgetown University also said that it supported members of its community “the rights of deliberation and free and open debate, even if the underlying ideas can be difficult, controversial or reprehensible”.
Meanwhile, the Alwaleed Center published a passionate defense of Suri on Thursday, saying that he had become the victim of a “campaign of the Trump administration to destroy higher education in the United States and punish their political opponents”.
“Direct threat to learning”
Suri and his wife Saleh had already been distinguished by “Campus Watch”, a project outside the forum in the Middle East which says that “examines and criticizes studies of the Middle East in North American universities”.
Critics have accused the project of being a tool to silence Israel’s criticism in higher education.
Hashemi, meanwhile, described Suri as a “very respected and serious academic”.
“In many ways, (Suri) was exactly the opposite of Mahmoud Khalil, in the sense that he was not an organizer or a leader. He was simply a postdoctoral researcher and stock market of our center,” said Hashemi, “who was simply working on themes of minority, majority and the problem of authoritarianism.”
Elgindy, on the other hand, said that the Trump administration continues to adopt a “dangerous confusion” with regard to complex discussions on Palestinian rights and resistance.
“Really any expression of solidarity with the Palestinians or the criticism of Israel is judged in itself, both anti-Semitic and intrinsically supports terrorism and Hamas,” he said.
Elgindy has described a “real atmosphere of fear” when it comes to opening an academic debate on the complex realities that define the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
“It really breaks at the heart of academic freedom-if people have to censor themselves, if students are afraid of asking certain questions or raising certain points because maybe someone in the class records and will share with some of these extremist groups that have the students,” he said.
“The intention is to cool the debate and to guess people guess if they should express certain points of view.”
A “flagrant attack”
Thursday, the member of the Congress Don Beyer, who represents the north of Virginia, also weighed on the detention of Suri, calling this a violation of his right to the “regular procedure” and a “blatant attack on the first amendment”, referring to the protections of the American Constitution for freedom of expression.
His declaration offered an overview of the principles likely to be brought before the federal courts.
The Trump administration has adopted the general position according to which these constitutional rights are not extended to holders of temporary visas or even permanent residents.
But the courts have largely confirmed the right of immigrants to enjoy freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and other basic freedoms.
Beyer called for a judge to quickly render a decision on the challenge of Suri to his imminent expulsion, stressing “the history of the administration aimed at trying to deny constitutional rights in a manner difficult to cancel before judicial appeals could be provided”.
Earlier this week, my constituent, Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholarship holder from Georgetown, was detained outside his house in Rosslyn. He remains in detention although he has not been accused of a crime, a clear violation of his constitutional rights. He must be released. pic.twitter.com/auppvfuq0k
– Rep. Don Beyer (@repdonbeyer) March 20, 2025
Late Thursday, a federal judge forbidden the Trump administration to immediately deport Suri. His lawyers told the news agency in Reuters that he was expecting a date for a hearing before the immigration court.
Hashemi and Elgindy, on the other hand, stressed the need for the academic community to take a firm position against Trump’s actions, while recognizing difficult landscapes and administrators.
Beyond the risks for teachers on temporary work visas, Trump also undertook to reduce federal funds to institutions that do not take sufficiently serious measures against demonstrators and “agitators”.
Its administration has already reduced $ 400 million in subsidies and contracts for Columbia University.
“I think the worst remains to come,” said Hashemi. “Unless people get up and not grow back.”
