Georgetown academic detained after visa was revoked due to his wife's opinion on Palestine. His wife is a US Citizen of Palestinian heritage.

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A Georgetown University researcher, who was studying and teaching on a student visa, has been detained by federal immigration authorities amid the Trump administration's crackdown on student activists whom the government accuses of opposing American foreign policy, according to court papers.

Masked agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and postdoctoral fellow, outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, on Monday night, his lawyer said in a lawsuit fighting for his immediate release. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security and told him the government had revoked his visa, the lawsuit says.

According to Suri's petition for release, he was put in deportation proceedings under the same rarely used provision of immigration law that the government has invoked to try to deport Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who led pro-Palestinian protests on campus. That provision gives the secretary of State the power to deport noncitizens if the secretary determines that their continued presence in the U.S. would threaten foreign policy.

Suri has no criminal record and has not been charged with a crime, his petition says. His detention and petition have not been previously reported.