Over a month after a district court judge in the US blocked the deportation of Indian researcher Badar Khan Suri, the Donald Trump administration urged a federal judge to move the Indian national’s lawsuit challenging his deportation from Virginia to Texas.
Suri was taken into custody by federal agents outside his house in Virginia on March 17 after he was told that his visa was being revoked.
Suri, who is a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, is currently in jail over allegations of “spreading Hamas propaganda”.
Badar Khan Suri went to the US in 2022 on a J-1 student visa.
JUDGE APPEARS TO BE SCEPTICAL OF GOVT ‘S REQUEST
US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles seemed sceptical of the administration’s request, which would involve her dismissing the case in Virginia. She raised concerns that a dismissal in her court would void her order in March to keep Badar Khan Suri in the US while his First Amendment case plays out, the news agency AP reported.
Notably, Judge Giles on March 20 ordered that Suri “shall not be removed from the United States unless and until the court issues a contrary order”.
David Byerley, a Justice Department attorney, told Giles that he would need to talk to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to answer the judge’s concerns.
The Justice Department’s attorneys, in a government filing, argued that Khan Suri’s attorneys filed his suit in Virginia after he was already taken out of state.
They said filing his case in Texas is a “relatively straightforward application of well-settled law”, according to the AP report.
The Trump administration claimed that Khan Suri’s transfer from a Virginia facility to detention centres in Louisiana and then Texas was prompted by overcrowding concerns in the northeastern state.
The judge also expressed doubts about the government’s claim of overcrowding, requesting data on available beds in Farmville at the time of Khan Suri’s detention and the number of transfers made due to overcrowding.
SURI’S LAWYERS ACCUSE US ADMIN OF FORUM SHOPPING
Khan Suri’s attorneys said the real reason he was moved to Texas was to bring the case before a more conservative judge, AP reported.
The attorney, Vishal Agraharkar, who is representing Khan Suri, accused the US government of what’s often called “forum shopping” to gain a more favourable court.
Forum shopping is a legal term that refers to the practice of a party in a lawsuit deliberately choosing to file their case in a particular court or jurisdiction that is most likely to give them a favourable outcome.
TEXAS, WESTERN LOUISIANA HAVE TRUMP-APPOINTED JUDGES
Unlike the US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, federal district courts in Texas and western Louisiana are dominated by Republican-appointed judges. Win or lose, appeals of such cases go to the reliably conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the AP report.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is one of 13 federal appellate courts in the country, comprising 17 active judges. A significant majority of these judges were appointed by Republican presidents, with six judges specifically appointed by Donald Trump in his first term (2016-2020).
Hassan Ahmad, another lawyer representing Indian national Khan Suri, supported Agraharkar’s assertions outside the courtroom following Thursday’s hearing, aligning himself with Agraharkar’s concerns about the government’s actions.
Khan Suri’s lawyers claimed his arrest and detention were unconstitutional, stemming from his wife Mapheze Saleh’s ties to Gaza.
Specifically, Saleh’s father had a long-standing role in the Hamas-backed government in Gaza, which they believe led to targeted action against the couple, despite Khan Suri’s attorneys arguing he hardly knew his wife’s father, Ahmed Yousef.
However, the US administration argued that Khan Suri has undisputed family ties to the terrorist organisation Hamas, which Khan Suri “euphemistically refers to as the government of Gaza”.
