Federal judge rules Georgetown scholar's wrongful arrest case will stay in Virginia

A national justice has ruled that a Georgetown scholar’s petition challenging the constitutionality of his apprehension should beryllium heard successful Virginia, denying the Trump administration’s petition to determination the lawsuit to Texas.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said she would perceive arguments successful mid-May connected whether Badar Khan Suri should beryllium returned to Virginia portion his deportation lawsuit proceeds successful Texas, wherever he's present detained. His adjacent proceeding successful the migration lawsuit is successful June.

The judge's precocious Tuesday memo says that by swiftly moving Khan Suri from Virginia to Louisiana and past Texas wrong days of his arrest, the authorities appeared to beryllium trying to thwart his lawyers' efforts to situation his detention successful the jurisdiction wherever it happened.

Khan Suri’s lawyers went to tribunal the time aft masked, plain-clothed officers arrested him connected the evening of March 17 extracurricular his flat analyzable successful Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked due to the fact that of his societal media posts and his wife’s transportation to Gaza arsenic a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. has designated arsenic a violent organization.

By the clip Khan Suri's petition was filed, authorities had already enactment him connected a level to Louisiana without allowing him to update his household oregon lawyer, Khan Suri's attorneys said. A fewer days later, helium was moved again to Texas.

“This atypical question would marque it hard for immoderate diligent lawyer’s filings to ’catch up’ to their client’s location,” and followed a signifier present evident successful aggregate efforts to deport students based connected their speech, Giles wrote.

The justice noted that Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a ineligible U.S. nonmigratory with nary transgression grounds who was detained successful March implicit his information successful pro-Palestinian demonstrations was moved wrong 48 hours of his apprehension successful Manhattan done lockups successful New York, New Jersey, Texas and, then, Louisiana.

She besides cited the lawsuit of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University pupil who was arrested successful a Boston suburb, driven New Hampshire and past Vermont, and past flown to a detention halfway successful Basile, Louisiana. A national appeals tribunal connected Wednesday ordered ICE to instrumentality Ozturk to Vermont.

Each student “was arrested connected antithetic days and successful antithetic regions,” Giles wrote. “What is similar? ... the Government attempted to determination each extracurricular of their jurisdictions to Louisiana oregon Texas.”

Unlike the national tribunal successful Alexandria, Virginia, the courts successful Texas and occidental Louisiana are dominated by Republican-appointed judges, and immoderate appeals spell to the reliably blimpish 5th Circuit, wherever 12 of the 17 full-time appellate judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by President Donald Trump.

Khan Suri came from India to the U.S. successful 2022 connected a J-1 visa. A visiting student and postdoctoral chap astatine Georgetown, helium taught a people connected bulk and number quality rights successful South Asia, and lived with his wife, who is simply a U.S. citizen, and 3 children.

U.S. attorneys argued that Khan Suri was rapidly moved due to the fact that a installation successful Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded and a adjacent detention halfway successful Caroline County had “no disposable beds and lone had constricted exigency bedspace.”

But the justice observed that for weeks thereafter, Khan Suri had to slumber connected a integrative cot connected the level of an overcrowded detention halfway successful Texas, and that according to his attorneys, helium present sleeps connected a furniture successful an overcrowded dormitory with astir 50 different people. The government's representations, she wrote, "are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the information that Prairieland Detention Center, wherever Petitioner (Khan Suri) is presently held, is overcrowded.”

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