US court affirms release of pro-Palestine scholar as legal battle continues

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In a 2-1 decision, the Virginia-based US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that federal immigration law did not bar a lower court ⁠judge from ordering Badar Khan Suri to be released. Khan Suri, an Indian citizen, was arrested in March 2025 as the administration of President Donald Trump detained and deported foreign nationals engaged in pro-Palestinian activism on college ‌campuses. The appeals court sided with Khan Suri’s claim that his detention violated his due process and free speech rights under the US Constitution. The court also rejected the Trump administration’s request to move the case from Virginia to Texas. “If a noncitizen is challenging their detention pending removal, then waiting for their removal proceedings does them no good. They have already been detained, allegedly in violation of the Constitution,” the court wrote in its ruling. A district court judge had ordered Khan Suri’s release in May last year. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is helping represent Khan Suri, hailed the ruling on Thursday. “The First Amendment protects all of us — regardless of citizenship — and we will continue to fight for his constitutional rights”, said Eden Heilman, legal director of the ACLU in Virginia. “ICE abducted Dr. Khan Suri from his home in Virginia before moving him among five different ICE facilities across three states in a shameless attempt to find a court that would be friendlier to his unlawful detention,” Heilman said, using the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The appeal court’s decision came after two other federal appeals courts overturned decisions by lower-court judges that had led to the release of pro-Palestinian campus activists. In a decision on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a lower court shouldn’t have ordered the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi because the case should have been resolved in the immigration court system. The Justice Department runs the immigration court system, which is separate from the federal judiciary, which operates independently from the executive branch. In a separate case, an appeals court also found that the district judge who freed pro-Palestine advocate Mahmoud Khalil did not have the authority to release him. The court allowed Khalil to remain free while he appeals his decision to the Supreme Court. With one appeals panel siding with a pro-Palestine student and two others siding with the Trump administration, the top US court is likely to weigh in to settle the matter. To deport pro-Palestine activists, the Trump administration has relied on a seldom-used provision of an immigration law that gives the secretary of state the power to remove people he deems to have “adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US. A Supreme Court ruling on the cases of Khan Suri, Khalil and Mahdawi could be a landmark decision with major implications for the civil rights of non-citizens living in the US. The Supreme Court has a six-to-three conservative majority, including three Trump-appointed justices. 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