Georgetown researcher arrest escalates Trump speech crackdown, scholars say

Georgetown fellow Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen, was targeted over his personal views on Palestine, supporters say.

Washington, DC – Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University, has been a vocal critic of efforts to silence pro-Palestine protesters and academics amid Israel’s war in Gaza.

Those efforts reached new heights under the administration of President Donald Trump, which last week took the extraordinary measure of detaining and seeking to deport Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent resident married to a US citizen.

Then, immigration authorities came for one of Hashemi’s own students. Earlier this week, agents detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which Hashemi directs.

“It’s shocking, and it sort of confirms our worst fears that authoritarian repression on American universities is expanding under the Trump administration,” said Hashemi.

Civil liberties groups and rights observers have decried — and challenged — Khalil’s attempted deportation, which Hashemi and other observers describe as an extension of the anti-Palestinian bias in the US government.