Deportation Effort at Georgetown University

While most national attention regarding campus anti-Semitism and the Trump administration’s efforts to deport those non-citizens who are promoting it on our college campuses is devoted to Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil, there is another story simmering at Georgetown University in Washington DC. 

Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national, who is a fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Christian and Muslim Understanding, a controversial entity in its own right, has been arrested by DHS and is in a holding facility in Louisiana pending deportation. He is accused of having ties to Hamas. A federal judge has ordered DHS not to deport Suri pending court hearings, and the left-as well as Georgetown itself- is all in a either in support of Suri.

Suri is married to a Georgetown student of Palestinian origin, Mapheze Ahmad Yousef Saleh, whose father, Ahmed Yousef, is identified as a longtime Hamas official. Suri’s defenders are arguing that he is a recognized peace activist who is being targeted for deportation because of his wife’s (who is an American citizen) family ties.

First of all, here is Suri’s Georgetown webpage.

Next, if you go to The Hoya, the campus newspaper of Georgetown University, they are predictably supporting Suri. The current edition has articles devoted to the story here and here. 

But there is much more to the story. Anna Stanley, writing for Campus Watch, has additional details here outlining Suri’s active support for Hamas including their actions on and after October 7, 2023.

Additionally, the website, Camera on Campus, which focuses on exposing campus anti-Semitism in US universities, has details here on Saleh’s own activities and statements. National Review also has more on Saleh here.

If Campus Watch, National Review, and Camera on Campus are correct, it would appear that Suri and Saleh are much more than just an Indian peace activist and his American wife who had a father who was a Hamas official. In addition, it would appear to be more than just two people whose sympathies are with the Palestinians, which is their right. There is a difference between sympathizing with the Palestinians and supporting Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization. There is also a difference between sympathizing with Palestinians and espousing anti-Semitism on a college campus as has been alleged. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the questionable nature of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Christian and Muslim Understanding. This is a center that has been under the microscope for years. One of its founding members, Professor Jonathan Brown, the son-in-law of deported ex-professor at the University of South Florida, Sami al-Arian, has a history of controversial statements including once defending slavery as it was practiced by Muslims in past centuries.

Going back to Ms. Saleh, she is an American citizen, so she is immune from any talk of deportation. It’s a different story with Suri. If, as alleged, he has contributed to anti-Semitism on campus-or anywhere else, and if he has ties to Hamas, in my view, he should be deported. Let him support Hamas from his native India. Not here.