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A federal judge is set to consider motions to release Georgetown University fellow Badar Khan Suri on bond while litigation continues over his revoked visa. Khan Suri’s attorneys have also asked the court to compel ICE to transfer him back to the federal district in Virginia where his petition was filed. The hearing is scheduled for April 11.
After his arrest March 17, according to the bond motion, Khan Suri was held in a staging facility in Louisiana before being driven days later to a detention center in Alvarado, Texas, where he’s now being held. The Indian national has been housed in a crowded detention center and had no access to accommodations for Ramadan, Khan Suri’s attorneys say in the filing. “Rather than experiencing the holy month of Ramadan with his wife and children, in the company of their community and practice of prayer and rituals that usually mark the month for the family, Dr.
Khan Suri languishes in federal detention in a crowded unit, sleeping on the floor, without access to religious accommodations,” the filing says. Before his arrest, Khan Suri was a postdoctoral fellow in Georgetown’s Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding with a contract through December 2026. According to the motion for his bail, Khan Suri’s scholarship, research and teaching position have been “indefinitely suspended.
” A letter from Georgetown’s dean of the School of Foreign Service, filed with the bond motion, says the institution would consider resuming Khan Suri’s position with his contract if his visa is reinstated. It also says Khan Suri posed no threat to the Georgetown campus. “During his time on campus, I am not aware that Dr.
Suri has engaged in any illegal activity, nor has he posed a threat to the security of our campus. He has been focused on completing his research on South Asia and teaching his students,” the March 24 letter from Joel Hellman says. The filing also includes a collection of letters from his Georgetown colleagues and his direct supervisor addressed to the federal judge advocating on Suri’s behalf.
The Justice Department has asked the court to defer decision on the motion to return Khan Suri to the district until it rules on the government’s motion to dismiss or transfer the case. Tuesday, DOJ attorneys filed a motion to dismiss or transfer the case, arguing the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, does not have jurisdiction over the case because Khan Suri wasn’t detained in the district when his petition was filed. He was already in Louisiana when the petition was filed, amid his transfer to Texas, DOJ attorneys say.
They argue Khan Suri’s case should be moved to federal court in Dallas or dismissed so his attorneys can refile the petition in the federal district that covers Alvarado. DOJ also asserts Khan Suri already knew he’d be transferred to the Texas detention facility the night he was arrested, before his petition was filed, though Khan Suri’s attorneys have said he never made contact with his wife or attorneys before they filed the petition March 18 and they couldn’t locate him. According to a government filing, hours after his arrest in Virginia officials issued Suri a notice for his detention placement in Texas and a notice to appear.
He’s scheduled to appear in a remote hearing on May 6 before an immigration judge, the filing says..
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