By Kaanita Iyer, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Aishwarya S Iyer and Chris Boyette, CNN

A federal judge on Thursday ruled the Trump administration could not deport Georgetown fellow Badar Khan Suri, who the university said was detained by the Department of Homeland Security as the Trump administration continues its immigration clampdown.

US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said that while she reviews Khan Suri’s petition in court challenging his detention, the administration is not to remove him from the country unless she issues another ruling to the contrary, according to the order.

Khan Suri’s attorney, Hassan Ahmad, says he and his team are working “diligently” to secure his client’s removal from a detention facility in Louisiana where he has been since Tuesday.

“We welcome Judge Giles’ ruling,” Ahmad said in a statement to CNN. “It is the first due process Dr. Khan Suri has received since he was snatched away from his family on Monday night.”

Khan Suri is an Indian national who is in the US on a visa “to continue his doctoral research on peace building in Iraq and Afghanistan,” a court filing said.

“We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the letter continued. In a statement to CNN, a university spokesperson said, “We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

In an earlier letter obtained by CNN, Georgetown University Interim President Robert Groves told its Board of Directors that Khan Suri had been detained by DHS and his visa had been revoked.

Khan Suri’s detention comes as President Donald Trump continues to crack down on students who engage in pro-Palestinian protests.

It’s the latest case in a series of arrests and deportation proceedings the Trump administration has brought against people associated with US colleges and universities, sending shockwaves across the academic community and raising concerns about the protection of free speech.

Khan Suri is married with children, but his family has not been given any information about his detention, his sister, Khushnuma Khan, told CNN. That includes their parents who live in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Khan said.

“We know only as much as anyone else, which is what is reported in the media. We are currently confused about how and why this is happening to him,” she said.

Khan Suri’s petition, filed earlier this week, alleged that his “targeted, retaliatory” detainment is tied to a broader effort by the Trump administration to allegedly revoke the visas of individuals “purportedly based on their participation in Palestine-related speech.”

Such an approach is unconstitutional, his lawyers allege.

Khan Suri’s sister added, “My brother’s wife is from Gaza. So maybe that is why this is happening.”

Khan Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is Palestinian, the petition notes, and a former employee of the Qatari-based news network Al Jazeera who had been “smeared” by an online group that “spreads misinformation and seeks to discredit American Muslims,” according to the court filing.

A court declaration filed on Thursday by Saleh said she posted on social media to show her support of the people of Gaza after the start of the Israel-Gaza war.

Saleh notes that she was born in the US and moved to Gaza at age 5, according to her declaration. Her father, who lived in the US for two decades, served as political advisor to the Prime Minister of Gaza and as Deputy of Foreign Affairs in Gaza until 2010, the filing said.

In February, Saleh says she started to feel unsafe, as online websites falsely accused her of having ties to Hamas, according to her declaration.

Khan Suri met Saleh’s father on two occasions – once during a humanitarian visit to Gaza and a second time to ask for Saleh’s hand in marriage, according to the filing. The couple moved to New Delhi in 2013 and Badar never returned to Gaza, the declaration adds.

While the filing does not mention Saleh’s father by name, The New York Times reported that Ahmed Yousef – a former adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh – confirmed in a voice message that he was Suri’s father-in-law. Yousef told The New York Times that he had left his position with the Hamas-run government more than a decade ago, and that his son-in-law was not involved in any “political activism.”

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a Wednesday post on X that Khan Suri was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Khan Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

“It’s becoming unfortunately emblematic of this administration to conflate the acknowledgement of Palestinian humanity with Hamas propaganda,” said Hassan Ahmad, Khan Suri’s attorney.

When asked about Khan Suri’s father-in-law, Ahmad said, “I’m only aware of one, possibly two times, that he’s met his father-in-law.”

“For the administration to say that it’s a close tie to a known and suspected terrorist, well, where’s the evidence? No administration official has put forth a shred of evidence that my client Dr. Khan Suri has been involved or is affiliated with any known or suspected terrorist,” Ahmad told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Thursday.

Khan Suri is being detained in southern Louisiana, Ahmad told CNN.

“He’s still fasting as an observant Muslim during Ramadan and trying to keep his spirits up,” Ahmad added. “He understands that he is a political prisoner. Those are his words and and he’s grateful for the outpouring of support that he has received.”

CNN has reached out to the DHS for further clarification. On Thursday, at an event in Florida, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem did not answer questions asked by reporters about Khan Suri.

McLaughlin also said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a determination on Saturday that “[Khan] Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable” under an obscure legal statute that gives the secretary of state authority to act if he or she believes a non-citizen would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

The State Department declined CNN’s requests for additional comment.

“I will say that seeing our government abduct and jail another innocent person is beyond contemptible,” Ahmad said in an email to CNN earlier this week. “And if an accomplished scholar who focuses on conflict resolution is whom the government decides is bad for foreign policy, then perhaps the problem is with the government, not the scholar.”

Ahmad wrote in a court filing that Khan Suri was targeted because of his wife’s “identity as a Palestinian and her constitutionally protected speech,” the Associated Press reported. She is an American citizen, according to the filing.

DHS provided no evidence that Khan Suri has committed any crimes and his detention violates his free speech and due process rights, Ahmad wrote in the court filing.

The postdoctoral fellow “cares deeply” about human rights and peace, another attorney for Khan Suri said.

“Dr. Khan Suri is a loving husband and father of young children. He was a distinguished faculty member of the prestigious Georgetown University, who specializes in peace and conflict studies, someone who cares deeply about human rights, dignity, peace, and safety for all people,” Nermeen Arastu, an attorney on Khan Suri’s legal team and associate professor of immigration law at CUNY School of Law told CNN.

When DHS officers came for Khan Suri they were “brandishing weapons” and wore black masks covering their faces, Arastu said.

“ICE agents came in the night, took him captive, taking him from his wife and children, and hauled him away to an unknown location before transferring him to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, far from his family and attorneys,” she added. “This is every family’s worst nightmare. And let’s be clear, this happened to him simply because President Trump wants to silence anyone he suspects to hold a political opinion contrary to his.”

Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist, was arrested earlier this month after the Trump administration accused Khalil – without providing evidence – of being a terrorist sympathizer and supporting Hamas. Khalil faces possible deportation until his case is heard. Khalil was arrested under the same statute used to detain Khan Suri.

According to Khan Suri’s bio page on the university’s website, he is a fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown’s school of foreign service. He was teaching a class this spring on majoritarianism and minority rights in South Asia.

CNN’s Evan Pérez, Tierney Sneed, Aleena Fayaz and Amanda Musa contributed to this report.

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