Judge Orders Georgetown Academic Released From Immigration Detention

A judge in Virginia on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who was arrested in March, after two months of detention in an immigration facility in Texas.

The order, issued from the bench by Judge Patricia Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia, came as courts around the country have been forced to navigate a sea of legal challenges caused by the Trump administration’s campaign to remove scores of foreign academics from the United States.

Judge Giles ordered that Mr. Suri be released without bond and imposed minimal conditions beyond requiring him to continue attending court proceedings.

Mr. Suri was among several individuals legally studying in the United States, including Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk and Momodou Taal, whom the Trump administration targeted for their pro-Palestinian activism, raising profound legal questions about freedom of expression.

Ms. Ozturk was released from detention last week as her case proceeds.

On March 15, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination that Mr. Suri’s presence in the United States “would have potentially serious foreign policy consequences,” according to a sworn statement that a Virginia immigration office filed in Mr. Suri’s case.

Two days later, Mr. Suri, an Indian national, was apprehended by masked immigration officials outside his home in Rosslyn, Va., and shuttled through detention centers in Virginia, Louisiana and Texas. He was granted a hearing before an immigration judge in Texas in May, and has spent the ensuing months at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado.