Tag: Released

  • Detained Georgetown Professor Released From ICE Custody

    Detained Georgetown Professor Released From ICE Custody

    Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow and professor at Georgetown University, was released from a federal detention center in Texas on Wednesday after being held for two months.

    Suri, an Indian national, was arrested in March under government claims that he was a threat to U.S. interests and had close connections to a known or suspected terrorist. This week a federal judge in Virginia ordered Suri’s immediate release due to a lack of evidence to support such claims.

    Suri is one of about a dozen foreign nationals in the U.S. targeted by the Trump administration for pro-Palestinian activism, including Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Rümeysa Öztürk and Momodou Taal. While Khalil remains in custody, Mahdawi was released on bail on April 30 and Öztürk was released from federal custody last week. Taal chose to leave the U.S. in April.

    Prior to his arrest, Suri had been in the U.S. for three years on a student visa and was teaching a course on minority rights in South Asia at Georgetown, according to The New York Times. Suri’s lawyers believe he was targeted because his father-in-law served as a political adviser to the Hamas-led government in Gaza in the early 2000s.

    Suri was apprehended outside his home in Rosslyn, Va., on March 15 and was moved among detention centers in Virginia, Louisiana and Texas. Suri described his treatment in the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas as subhuman, saying he was chained at the ankles, wrists and body.

    Other international academics are locked in legal battles with the federal government over challenges to their standing in the U.S.

    A University of Minnesota student, Dogukan Gunaydin, has been in ICE custody since March despite having his case overturned. Alireza Doroudi, who was a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, requested voluntary departure to avoid prolonged detention, according to his attorney. Columbia student Leqaa Kordia was arrested in March and remains in an immigration detention center in Texas.

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  • Tufts PhD Student Released After Six-Week Detention Raising Academic Freedom Concerns

    Tufts PhD Student Released After Six-Week Detention Raising Academic Freedom Concerns

    Rümeysa Öztürk with her attorneyAfter six weeks in federal detention, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was released last Friday following a federal judge’s ruling that her continued detention potentially violated her constitutional rights and could have a chilling effect on free speech across college campuses.

    U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered Öztürk’s immediate release, stating she had raised “substantial claims” of both due process and First Amendment violations. The 30-year-old Turkish national, who was arrested on March 25 outside her Somerville, Massachusetts home by masked federal agents, had been detained at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana—more than 1,500 miles from her university.

    “Continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens. Any one of them may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center,” Judge Sessions stated during Friday’s hearing.

    Öztürk’s legal team argued that her detention was directly connected to her co-authoring a campus newspaper op-ed critical of Tufts University’s response to the war in Gaza. During the hearing, Judge Sessions noted that “for multiple weeks, except for the op-ed, the government failed to produce any evidence to support Öztürk’s continued detention.”

    The Trump administration had accused Öztürk of participating in activities supporting Hamas but presented no evidence of these alleged activities in court. Öztürk, who has a valid F-1 student visa, has not been charged with any crime.

    Öztürk’s case is part of what appears to be a growing pattern of detentions targeting international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Her arrest by plainclothes officers, captured on video showing her being surrounded as she screamed in fear, sparked national outrage and campus protests.

    “It’s a feeling of relief, and knowing that the case is not over, but at least she can fight the case while with her community and continuing the academic work that she loves at Tufts,” said Esha Bhandari, an attorney representing Öztürk.

    The same day as Öztürk’s release, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York denied an administration appeal to re-arrest Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident Mohsen Mahdawi, another case involving a student detained after pro-Palestinian advocacy.

    During her six weeks in detention, Öztürk, who suffers from asthma, experienced multiple attacks without adequate medical care, according to testimony. At Friday’s hearing, she briefly had to step away due to an asthma attack while a medical expert was testifying about her condition.

    Judge Sessions cited these health concerns as part of his rationale for immediate release, noting Öztürk was “suffering as a result of her incarceration” and “may very well suffer additional damage to her health.”

    In his ruling, Judge Sessions ordered Öztürk’s release without travel restrictions or ICE monitoring, finding she posed “no risk of flight and no danger to the community.” Despite this clear order, her attorneys reported that ICE initially attempted to delay her release by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor.

    “Despite the 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rümeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction,” said attorney Mahsa Khanbabai.

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