“There was no charge, there was nothing,” Badar Khan Suri said after his release. “They made a sub human out of me”
Released from detention on a federal judge’s order, Badar Khan Suri, an Indian researcher at Georgetown University, alleged he was treated like a “sub human” during his two month incarceration at Prairieland Detention Center in Texas.
Khan Suri, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the prestigious Washington D.C. institution on a student visa, was arrested outside his Virginia home on March 17 by immigration agents as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on activists across college campuses.
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His lawyers say he was targeted “for speech in support of Palestinian rights and family ties to Gaza.” U.S. authorities accuse him of “spreading Hamas propaganda” and having “connections to a known or suspected terrorist.”
“There was no charge, there was nothing,” he told NBC News after leaving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility Wednesday afternoon. “They made a sub human out of me.”
Ordering his release Eastern District of Virginia Judge Patricia Giles ruled that Khan Suri’s detention was in violation of the First Amendment, the right to free speech, and the Fifth amendment, the right to due process.
Speaking about the conditions in which he was subject to, he said that during the first several days in ICE custody, he wasn’t sure where he was being taken.
“For the first seven, eight days, I even missed my shadow,” he said. “It was Kafka-esqe, where they were taking me, what they were doing to me. I was chained — my ankles, my wrist, my body. Everything was chained.”
Inside the detention center, Khan Suri said, the facilities were unhygienic and he attempted to raise concerns with the ombudsman. However, he said he never received a reply. Khan Suri said that amid his detention, he was fearful about how his three children would fare.
“I had only worried that, ‘Oh, my kids are suffering because of me,’ My eldest son is only nine, and my twins are only five,” Khan Suri said. “My nine-year-old knows where I am. He was going through very rough times. My wife used to tell me that he was crying. He needs support from mental health.”
The father of three said that “once I hug them, things will be fine.” And though the experience took a toll on the family, he said he harbors no feelings of vengeance. “There is madness everywhere, but it shouldn’t be in the United States of America,” Khan Suri said. “This is a bastion of hope.”
His wife, Maphaz Ahmad Yousef, said that hearing the judge’s words “brought tears to my eyes.”
“I wish I could give her a heartfelt hug,” Yousef said at a separate news conference in Virginia, NBC News reported.
Yousef said that while the ordeal has been difficult for her family, Khan Suri said that he did not regret his support for Palestine.
“Badar told me, ‘If my suffering in the detention center is because I married to a Palestinian and because I spoke out against the genocide in Gaza, then I should wear it as a badge of honor,’” she said at the news conference.
“I can’t wait for the moment when my husband will reunite with my children,” she said. “It’s a victory, a victory for all of us, a victory for justice.”
Yousef, an American citizen who is originally from Gaza, is also a student at Georgetown. Her father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Khan Suri says he has never attended any protests. “I came to the U.S. to work and raise my family: I go to work, come home late, and still they came and took me and broke my family,” Khan Suri said in a news release. “In my work, I’ve seen lots of injustice. I just didn’t think it would happen to me here.”
Khan Suri’s habeas petition also described the conditions in the detention center. When first arriving in Texas, the documents said, Suri wasn’t assigned to a bed in a dorm and was instead put in the facility’s “TV room,” where the television runs every day from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m, the petition said. Khan Suri had also requested religious accommodations, the petition said, and only received halal food after five days.
“On April 2, officers came and told him that he had complained through his lawyer about his religious accommodations and asked him for more details. After Dr. Khan Suri reaffirmed his needs, he was given a prayer mat, a Quran, and provided a space on a bed in the dorm, outside of the TV room.”
While detained, Khan Suri was issued a bright red uniform, usually reserved for individuals classified as high security due to their criminal history, the petition said. When he asked about his uniform, Khan Suri was told that he fell under the category due to his association “with a known criminal group — presumably based on Respondents’ unfounded claims of his connections to Hamas,” the petition said.
“Due to his classification and security protocols at the facility, Dr. Khan Suri is only permitted two hours per week of recreation,” the petition said.