Press Releases

Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) today issued the following statement welcoming a ruling by Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles rejecting the Trump Administration’s attempts to remove jurisdiction over the case of Beyer’s constituent, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, to Texas, where it whisked him after he was detained by masked ICE agents outside his home in Arlington, Virginia:

“Dr. Badar Khan Suri is in Texas right now because the Trump Administration whisked him there as quickly as it could to get a more favorable judicial environment to further trample his rights and the Constitution. This was blatant forum shopping, and Judge Giles wisely saw through it and rejected the administration’s feeble lies and post hoc excuses for its actions, which as she noted mirror similar behavior in other recent, high-profile cases including those of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk.

“The Trump Administration’s tactic of rushing students and scholars to distant detention centers to seek more favorable jurisdictions for consideration of their cases has now been rejected by multiple federal judges. This practice has likely been organized, coordinated, and directed by a central authority in the administration. If what the administration was doing here was above board, they would be transparent and honest about it; instead they have been secretive and defended the practice with outright lies. They are sending multiple signals that they have something to hide in their conduct of these cases, and Congress should investigate to find out why. I will have more to come on that subject soon.”

Beyer met with Dr. Khan Suri’s counsel last week and attended his hearing before Judge Giles on Thursday, which resulted in this ruling. Beyer subsequently wrote to the Acting Director of ICE on Monday seeking reevaluation of Dr. Khan Suri’s status, including consideration of his eligibility for release and alteration of his custody status, which is currently classified as “high-risk.” He is the co-lead of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman’s recently introduced ICE Visibility Act.

Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University who lives in Arlington, Virginia. He was in the country legally on a visa when he was detained without charges on orders from the Trump Administration in March by masked agents outside his home in Rosslyn, and moved to a series of prisons and detention centers, ultimately ending in Texas. He is still being held there today, over 1,300 miles away from his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three young children. According to Khan Suri’s counsel, “His son spent days crying uncontrollably following his father’s disappearance, and has now stopped speaking.” Dr. Khan Suri has never been charged with a crime and the government has never produced evidence that he did anything wrong.

In Thursday’s hearing, Dr. Khan Suri’s attorneys sought his return to Virginia, while the government sought to remove the case’s jurisdiction to Texas. Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles sought further information from the government on their justification for moving him to Texas, and the government claimed Dr. Khan Suri was removed to Texas to prevent overcrowding at a Virginia detention center. Yet, as Judge Giles pointed out, Khan Suri had a room with a bed to himself in Virginia whereas, for the first 10 days of his detention in Texas he “was forced to sleep on the floor of the television room with the TV blaring nonstop and the lights on 24/7.”