Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -A pro-Palestinian Georgetown University student from India, detained by President Donald Trump's administration but then released on a judge's order, can remain free while fighting deportation efforts, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against the administration's request that Badar Khan Suri be returned to immigration detention. The 4th Circuit said it found no grounds to overturn the decision by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles to order Suri's release.

"To allow the government to undermine habeas jurisdiction by moving detainees without notice or accountability reduces the writ of habeas corpus to a game of jurisdictional hide-and-seek," Judge James Andrew Wynn wrote on Tuesday.

Habeas corpus refers to a procedure under which the legality of a person's incarceration can be challenged in court.

Suri, 41, was arrested in Virginia in March and then moved by the U.S. government to Texas, where he was released in May after the ruling by Giles. Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown's Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, part of the Jesuit university's School of Foreign Service.

The Trump administration has attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters while accusing them of being antisemitic, threats to American foreign policy and extremist sympathizers. Suri has denied the U.S. government's allegations that he spread Palestinian militant propaganda and antisemitism on social media.

Protesters, including some Jewish groups, have said the U.S. government has conflated criticism of Israel's military assault in Gaza with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism. Human rights advocates have raised free speech and due process concerns over the administration's actions toward these students.

Other pro-Palestinian students who were arrested by the government and subsequently released under judicial orders include Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk.

Suri's wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a U.S. citizen. Saleh is from Gaza, according to the Georgetown University website, which said she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and worked with the foreign ministry in Gaza. Saleh was not arrested.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)

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