Trump asks Supreme Court to allow DHS detention of pro-Palestinian scholar
by Stephen Dinan · The Washington TimesPresident Trump has asked the Supreme Court to hear a case involving a Georgetown University scholar who was targeted for deportation last year after a government artificial intelligence tool flagged his social media posts as too pro-Palestinian.
The Justice Department said thousands of deportation cases could rest on the outcome. The government said if the justices don’t intervene, migrants would have a new avenue to challenge their removals in federal district court, in addition to the immigration courts — giving them an unwarranted second bite at the apple.
The specific case involves Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen who came to the U.S. on a temporary visa to work as a postdoctoral fellow.
He was one of the first targets of the Trump administration’s campaign last year to identify and try to deport pro-Palestinian foreigners in the academic community.
The State Department harnessed an AI tool to scour social media, and Mr. Suri was flagged, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio finding his family had ties to Hamas and Mr. Suri himself spread antisemitic, pro-Hamas propaganda.
That finding made him deportable, despite his legal visa, and Homeland Security arrested him.
Mr. Suri challenged his detention in regular federal district court and won both release and an order barring his deportation. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Biden appointee, said his arrest and detention violated the First Amendment.
Her ruling was upheld by a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision.
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Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices in his petition Monday that the lower courts have blown a hole in the usual deportation process created by Congress.
Deportation cases are supposed to be heard by immigration courts, which are part of the Justice Department, and if the migrant wants to appeal the cases, go directly to circuit courts.
But under Mr. Trump, migrants have discovered a work-around, bringing habeas corpus challenges to their detention in district court. And thousands of those petitions have been granted, with judges ruling the administration made illegal arrests or refused to offer a bond hearing.
“That is all practically disastrous,” Mr. Sauer told the high court.
A different appeals court, the 3rd Circuit, has ruled the opposite way in another high-profile case involving Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University who was targeted for deportation.
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That appeals court, in a 2-1 decision, ruled that Mr. Khalil did need to take his case to the immigration courts and not the regular federal district courts.
Mr. Sauer said the split decisions by appeals courts were reason enough for the justices to take the case.
The case is separate from another line of cases Mr. Sauer has asked the justices to hear concerning mandatory detention of some migrants whom DHS arrests years after their initial illegal entry into the U.S.
Those cases turn on whether the migrants can still be deemed applicants for admission, since they were never formally admitted.
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Mr. Suri, though, came on a legal visa and was admitted.
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Stephen Dinan
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