Georgetown scholar recalls terror and ‘mockery of due process’ in immigration jail

ARLINGTON Va AP One of the lowest moments of Badar Khan Suri s two months in federal custody was being crammed onto an airplane with hundreds of other shackled prisoners The Trump administration was trying to deport the Georgetown University scholar over statements he made against Israel s war in Gaza The guards wouldn t say where they were headed but the Indian national was convinced it was out of the United States Then Khan Suri had to use the plane s bathroom He stated the guards refused to unshackle his wrists They explained No you have to use it like this or do it in your trousers Khan Suri recalled of the trip taking him to a Louisiana detention center They were behaving as if we were animals Khan Suri was disclosed on bond last week as his lawsuit against the U S s deportation affair continues In an interview with The Associated Press he spoke Thursday of a cramped cell crowded with other detainees where he waited anxiously fearful about what would happen next He also addressed the Trump administration s accusations that he spread Hamas propaganda Khan Suri declared he only spoke in backing of Palestinians who are going through an unprecedented livestreamed genocide I don t help Hamas he announced I help Palestine I promotion Palestinians And it is so deceiving for selected people who just publish canards They will just replace Palestine with Hamas Yet because of his comments he reported U S personnel treated him as if he had committed a high-level crime Fellow inmates announced his red uniform was reserved for the bulk dangerous offenders I explained No I m just a university instructor I did nothing Khan Suri recalled Still there were rays of hope He disclosed more than a hundred people from the Georgetown society wrote letters on his behalf to the federal judge overseeing his scenario including particular who are Jewish A crowd also greeted him when he arrived back in the Washington D C area Hindus Jews Christians Muslims everyone together explained Khan Suri a postdoctoral fellow who studies religion peace and violence That is the reality I want to live with That s the reality I want to die for Those people together I was not in Russia or North Korea U S Immigration bureaucrats have detained international college students from across the country a great number of of whom participated in campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war since the early days of Trump s second administration The administration has announced it revoked Khan Suri s visa because he was spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media while also citing his connections to a senior advisor to Hamas which court records indicate is his wife Mapheze Saleh s father Saleh is a Palestinian American whose father worked with the Hamas-backed Gazan governing body in the early s but before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct Khan Suri s attorneys have mentioned They also disclosed he barely knew his father-in-law Ahmed Yousef Khan Suri s attorneys explained he wouldn t comment on Yousef during Thursday s interview which mostly covered his arrest and time in custody The Department of Homeland Assurance did not instantly respond to a request for comment regarding Khan Suri s statements Khan Suri mentioned he was arrested just after he taught his weekly class on minority rights and the majority Masked police in plain clothes pulled up in an unmarked car outside his suburban Washington home They demonstrated no documents he announced Other than saying his visa was being revoked they refused to explain the reason for his arrest which he described it as a kidnapping This is not various authoritarian regime Khan Suri disclosed I was not in Russia or North Korea I was in the best place in the world So I was shocked How can this be happening As police whisked him away Khan Suri realized they requested to deport him The dehumanizing procedures came next A finger scan a DNA cotton swab and chains binding his wrists waist and ankles he mentioned They also stated he could talk to his wife at a detention center in Virginia but that never happened He disclosed he slept on a floor without a blanket and used a toilet monitored by a camera The next day he announced he and other detainees were placed in a van which soon rolled up to an airplane I inquired them where I am going now Nobody would reply anything Khan Suri commented They just pushed us in He noted the bathroom situation did not get better at a federal detention center in Louisiana where Khan Suri was taken next It lacked a privacy barrier and was also watched by a camera He was completely able to call his wife but he noted she couldn t hear him Khan Suri explained he was extremely terrified thinking that someone was making his family not reply He was not able to speak to a lawyer while fellow inmates revealed everyone there is deported within three days Khan Suri disclosed I was crying from inside How can this be happening he declared A scant hours back I was in Georgetown teaching my students talking about peace and conflict analysis Through the abyss Khan Suri noted his first seven or eight days of captivity were the same Same terror Same fear Same uncertainty Same mockery of rule of law Same mockery of due process I was going more and more deeper reaching to my abyss he added And I was discovering that the abyss also has more and more depth But he was still praying five times a day uncertain which direction Mecca was I was very strong like that that God will help me American Constitution will help me American people will help me he declared Afterward Khan Suri was transferred to a detention facility in Texas where he mentioned he slept on the floor of a crowded cell for the first two weeks Eventually he got his own cot And completely he was allowed to speak to his attorneys which he declared led to a change in cure Khan Suri who is Muslim soon received a Quran and then a prayer rug As for the rug he rolled it up like it was his young son My eyes would become wet and I would give that blanket a hug as my son so that this hug should reach him Khan Suri reported And when I came back he reported me the same that he was hugging a pillow Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press Summary for America Statehouse News Initiative Record for America is a nonprofit national amenity initiative that places journalists in local newsrooms to description on undercovered issues Source