Portside

This conversation is being co-published by three leftist magazines: Acacia, Hammer & Hope, Lux and Acacia. 

Dr. Badar Khan Suri was returning home from a campus iftar on March 17 when masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents jumped out of an unmarked car and detained him outside his home. He had not been charged with any crime.

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Suri is an interdisciplinary scholar focusing on religion, violence, and peace, especially in the Middle East and South Asia, and works as a researcher at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Over the course of two months, ICE held him in detention centers throughout the South. Since his release on May 14, he has been challenging his warrantless arrest and detention in federal court, bringing claims under the First and Fifth Amendments. And he is lifting up the names of those still being held, including Leqaa Kordia, a student at Columbia University who was arrested while protesting there but now languishes in a detention center in Texas.

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Suri had been out of detention for a month and two days when I spoke with him over a video conference on June 16, the day before Father’s Day. Occasionally, he muted his microphone to address his three children, who were running around the house. He was finally home in Virginia, where he was supposed to be.

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For an hour and a half, our conversation spanned his faith, his experience in detention, and his politics.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Hira

Can you tell me a little bit about your life before you were kidnapped?

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Badar

It was a perfect life. Perfect day. Everything was fine. I was teaching a course.

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Hira

Can you tell me about the day ICE arrested you?

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Badar

Mondays I used to have a class. So I did my class. By 6:30 p.m. I was free. At Georgetown, we have a community iftar [to break the Ramadan fast], so after we prayed at the mosque, we went to a place where we could eat. I sat with students and colleagues and discussed the smear campaign against my wife.

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After finishing my dinner with them, I went home early. I didn’t do taraweeh [a special prayer performed exclusively during the month of Ramadan]. I just did Isha [the final of the five daily obligatory prayers in Islam] quickly in my office and went home because I was feeling tired. I took the shuttle bus from my university and reached my place around 9:20 p.m.

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As I was about to reach my gate, I saw this one blackish, oldish, big car, like a truck, moving parallel to me. It was not driving well. So I stopped for a second, and I looked at them, like, What kind of driving is this? As if they were about to hit me. So then I moved, and then again, after maybe a few seconds, when I was just about to open my gate, they opened the door of the car and a masked man jumped out and said, “Are you Badar?” I said, “Yes.” I was shocked. He wasn’t wearing a badge and uniform, just plain clothes. A muscular man — he looked like he was in a militia. The next thing he said was “You are under arrest.” I was shocked, terrified, petrified.

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Hira

Did they tell you why they were arresting you?

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Badar

They just said, “Your student visa is revoked.” I said, “I’m not a student. I teach students. I was just teaching students.” They said, “No, it’s the same thing.” Then I called my wife and asked her to bring my passport and the documents which state I am a professor. By the time she brought them, they had handcuffed me and put me in their car. They took the papers from her, and she asked them, “Who are you?” They said, “We are from the Department of Homeland Security, and we are taking him to Chantilly ; you can come and see him there.”

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Hira

They didn’t read you any rights?

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Badar

Nothing, nothing, nothing. No arrest warrant. To this day they haven’t been able to provide an arrest warrant in court, because it doesn’t exist.

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They were playing from a playbook which has no rights. If my visa is revoked, say, “Hey, sir, your visa is revoked. You have this many days to leave the country. If you won’t leave, you will be arrested. Please go to court.” ICE is committing a monumental abuse of power, with masked men, unmarked cars, warrantless arrest, cruel apprehensions — this is common rogue agency behavior.

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They are behaving like a secret police, like the Gestapo in Germany. They are acting like the repressive apparatus of American authoritarianism, which New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls the foot soldiers of the fascists. So, as fascists do, they took me, put me in the car, and disappeared me until March 22, when I was able to talk to my family and my lawyer.

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Hira

Can you tell me about your experience being moved by ICE from Virginia to Louisiana to Texas?

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Badar

First, when they took me to Chantilly, they allowed me to make a final call to my wife. They said, “We are taking you to Farmville , and you will stay there until you have a court date.” In the car, they had told me that someone high at the State Department has ordered me to leave. And then they said, “We will deport you.” “Okay,” I said. “When?” Then they said, “Today.”

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Then they took me, chained my waist and hands, and put me in a car. After three hours, we were in Farmville. There they put me in a cell by myself. It was a big cell. It was like a storage area, with trash there. Then I lay down there for three, four hours on the floor. I said that I’m fasting, I need to have Suhoor [the predawn meal before the Ramadan fast], but they didn’t give me any food. I didn’t even get to drink water. So I fasted [without suhoor].

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Then they took me to Richmond . This time they chained my ankles, too, so legs, hands, and waist — everything chained. In Richmond, they put me in a cell by myself. It was a very small cell where there was no place to even lie down, and it was very cold. They didn’t remove the chains from my leg. I sat there from around 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. I said, “Can I make a call?” And they would not listen to anything I said.

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At 1 p.m., they said, “Come.” I said, “Come where?” They say, “We can’t tell you. We are not supposed to.” I asked, “Can I make a call?” They didn’t reply. And then they put many of us in a van.

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We were in that van for almost an hour when I saw the tarmac where the plane was parked. I said, “Okay, this is the deportation.” They put us in this big airplane, 250, 300 people who are, like me, in chains. I then asked for the bathroom. They wouldn’t open the chains, so it was tough. Like, your hands up and chains locked on your waist, and they say, “Use it like this.”

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When we touched down, I saw a sign that said Alexandria Staging Facility Louisiana. So this Alexandria Staging Facility is a very crazy place. It is right at the airport. I mean, the plane is parked the way we park our cars outside of our homes.

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I went inside a big waiting area. There I sat for hours; then they took hours to unchain everyone. They punched my knee because they wanted to bend my knee, so that they could take off the shackles. So they punched it. It still pains. I don’t know if it pains today because of that or because of the acute malnutrition I would experience in Texas.

They didn’t give me food for iftar. They gave me food around 11 or 12 at night. And no Suhoor again, because they used to give breakfast around 6 or 7 a.m.

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Hira

Did they make any religious accommodations for you?

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Badar

No. Nowhere, not even in Texas. When I ultimately reached Texas, I prayed under the TV in the common room.

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In Louisiana, there were five, six phones. There was an option of a 20-second free call. So I dialed my wife’s number, and then I was able to hear her voice, my kids’ voices, but they wouldn’t respond. Later my wife told me that she never heard my voice.

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I was in Louisiana on March 18, 19. Then on the 20th, someone came and told me that three of us — one Indian, one Central Asian maybe from Tajikistan, and I — will go to New York the next day. I believed I would be deported. But the next day, on the 21st, a lady came and said, “You will go to Texas.” I later learned that on the 20th, the court issued an order that they cannot deport me.

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So they put me in a big van all by myself to go to Texas. It was a six- or seven-hour journey. Then it took seven hours to process me. Around 11 or 12 at night, they gave me two slices of bread, one cheese, and one apple. So that was my food. I was in a cell, which had a toilet, and it smelled very bad. People would come and use the toilet, and then leave. When they gave me food, I said, “At least let me eat this outside,” in the hallway. They said, “You can eat it here,” and they closed the door. So I hid myself and I ate it. I ate it because I had to eat it for Suhoor.

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Then around 3:30 a.m. they put me in this red suit. There are blue, orange, and red suits. Blue was the most basic. Red was for the most dangerous criminals. So they gave me red, and red will live with red. So you will live with dangerous criminals.

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The moment I put my foot in, I put it out, because people started yelling, “Fresca.” “Fresca” means fresh meat. Later, when I lived with them, I realized it was nothing; they were just having some fun. I put my foot in and pulled it back, and I said to the agents, “I am scared, literally scared.” But they just pushed me in and closed the door. Dozens were sleeping on the floor; there was no space to even walk.

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The people say, “Hey, you are in red. What crime did you commit?” I said, “No, I’m just a university teacher.” It was very painful. I was scared.

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Then some Muslim people came and asked, “Are you fasting?” They took me to the TV room. They were also fasting. They asked me, “Have you eaten anything?” I told them what I ate. They shared their food with me. Someone gave me tuna, someone gave me a biscuit, someone gave me an apple. They sat with me.

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Hira

Can you talk to me about how your faith helped you during this time?

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Badar

‍Imam Suleiman told me one important thing: “Your name is Badar, and you were picked up on March 17.” That was the 17th day of Ramadan. What happened on the 17th day of Ramadan? The Battle of Badr, when Allah sent his angels to help the Muslims. He said, “So when you were born, it was decided that you will be bothered, but on this day you will not be left alone.”

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And really I was not left alone, because when they wanted to deport me, the court order came: You can’t deport him. And then Allah made me strong while I was fasting. I could have said, “It’s a tough time, and I shouldn’t fast.” In Louisiana I didn’t know the direction of Makkah [the Arabic pronunciation for Mecca], but I was doing my salah. I was doing my fast.

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I was always thinking, Why am I here? They have identified me with the Palestinian cause, being married to a Palestinian and given my sympathies with Palestinians. So if they have put me here for them, my suffering is nothing in comparison to theirs. They are dying every day. My kids are maybe suffering. Where is their father? But I am still alive. They are still alive. Their limbs are not amputated. We are fine. How can we compare ourselves to Palestinians?

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So I have God. If I am there in the Palestinians’ name, I take it as a badge of honor. I am not sorry.

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Hira

How did the Georgetown community or other academics support you at this time?

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Badar

The charges against me were antisemitism. But the Jewish community, hundreds and hundreds of rabbis, wrote a letter to the judge that this is wrong. The Georgetown Jewish community — students, teachers, colleagues, chaplains, faith leaders, everyone — 180 of them signed a letter. It said that this is weaponizing Jewish identity and faith and the fears of antisemitism as a smokescreen for the administration’s authoritarian agenda. They called my arrest politically motivated.

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Everybody at Georgetown, including the dean of the school of foreign service, my department, and other colleagues — including Jewish colleagues — were writing letters to the judges. They were writing in the media. Students, faculty, and staff were on the streets demanding justice for me, because anybody who knows me knows that this guy is the opposite of what the government is saying.

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See, I was always busy in my research, so I could never take part in any protest. Sometimes if I’m passing from my office to the library, if a protest is happening, I will stand there and see what’s happening. I never raise banners and shout. And there were many big rallies that happened that I didn’t join.

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When the judge asked them to show any shred of evidence, they were not able to give anything, anything.

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Hira

Is there anything you’d like to leave readers with?

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Badar

People should know that creating fear to suppress dissent in the name of patriotism or national security is McCarthyism. This happened in the 1950s against Communists. It was defeated back then. It will again be defeated. It is done by autocrats around the world, in Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Russia, North Korea. But this transition to authoritarianism can be stopped.

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Everyone has their own role to play. Hopelessness at this time is a crime. One has to show moral courage to say what is happening is wrong, be it the genocide in Gaza or the transition to authoritarianism in the United States. As Nelson Mandela demonstrated, we have to even brave imprisonment for truth and justice to triumph over evil at this time.

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Most importantly, I would like to talk about Gandhian ideology, which has nonviolence and forgiveness as guiding principles. Revenge perpetuates a never-ending cycle of violence. Respond to hate and harm with peace and compassion. It takes more courage to do so. True strength lies in the ability to forgive and not seek vengeance. So these things we should keep in mind. Every generation has to pass through certain tests. These are our tests.

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Islam says that if something wrong is happening, stop it by your hand. If you can’t do that, if we are not powerful enough, use your tongue to oppose it. Make noise, write, do something. And if you can’t do that, at least be on the right side in your heart. Say that something wrong is happening.

Dr. Badar Khan Suri is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. He is an interdisciplinary scholar who’s areas of interest are religion, violence and peace; ethnic conflicts and peace processes in Middle East and South Asia. He is working on a project that looks into potential causes that hinder cooperation among religiously diverse societies and possibilities to overcome those hindrances.

Hira Ahmed is editor-in-chief of Acacia.

Acacia is a political and cultural magazine that brings together writers, thinkers, and artists of the Muslim left to discuss the issues of our time. We are an online magazine that publishes semi-annual print editions. Acacia is a home for Muslim thinkers and creatives to reclaim our own narratives and imagine alternative futures. Acacia is a place for all folks who identity as or with Muslims, to converse about the path forward for our communities in the face of rising global fascism, climate catastrophe, and raging inequality

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