Who is Mapheze Saleh? Meet the wife of Badar Khan Suri, the Indian-origin academic in the US facing deportation for alleged Hamas ties

Federal immigration authorities have detained the Indian-origin researcher Badar Khan Suri, who was studying and teaching at Georgetown University on a student visa. According to Politico, the detention is part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target student activists whom the government claims oppose U.S. foreign policy.
This detention comes after the similar cases of Mahmoud Khalil, a student activist and negotiator in the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupations, who was arrested from his apartment building by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on March 8, 2025, and Ranjani Srinivasan, a PhD scholar at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) who self-deported from the US to Canada after discovering their visa had been canceled for participating in pro-Palestine protests, and federal immigration agents had arrived at their door.
Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, has filed a lawsuit seeking his immediate release, stating that Suri is being punished for his wife, Mapheze Saleh’s Palestinian heritage and that he has no criminal record.

As per the report, Suri's lawyer argued in the petition that Suri has not been charged with any crime. It rather highlighted that he is being targeted due to his wife, Mapheze Saleh’s, Palestinian heritage, despite her being a U.S. citizen.

Saleh previously worked for Al Jazeera, and has been alleged to have “ties with Hamas”, the petition was quoted as saying.
The petition also claimed that the couple has faced repeated targeting and attacks on anonymous far-right websites due to their support for Palestinian rights.
Politico referenced a 2018 article from the Hindustan Times, which stated that Saleh's father, Ahmed Yousef, served as a senior political adviser to Hamas leadership.

However, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, stated on X that Suri is a foreign exchange student who has been “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” McLaughlin also claimed that Suri has close ties to “a known or suspected terrorist who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

Badar Khan Suri is an Indian researcher, who is currently holding a post-doctoral fellowship at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University in the United States of America.

Suri earned his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia in 2020. Suri holds a student visa and is married to an American citizen. Recently, he was arrested by federal agents outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia, and is currently being held in Alexandria, Louisiana, while awaiting his court appearance in immigration court, as reported by Reuters.
The report from Politico stated that Suri's lawyer has been unable to reach him since Wednesday evening. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday. The article further mentioned that Suri was initially taken to a facility in Virginia and was expected to be moved to a detention center in Texas soon. However, as of Wednesday evening, an online tool for tracking immigration detainees showed that he was at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "staging" center located at the Alexandria airport in Louisiana.