Appeals court allows Georgetown researcher, previously detained by ICE, to remain free
Suri, a native of India who was studying and teaching at Georgetown under a student visa, was arrested amid a crackdown by the Trump administration on foreign academics residing in the United States who had expressed support for Palestinian causes or participated in pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel protests. Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked visas for many of them, igniting quick deportation proceedings, claiming their activism had veered into antisemitism — claims the targeted students and researchers have denied.
Rubio's determinations have met pointed condemnations in federal courts, where judges have described them as an unconstitutional attack on First Amendment-protected speech. And the 4th Circuit panel noted that the Trump administration largely declined to challenge that conclusion, instead arguing that federal courts simply didn't have authority to hear the cases at all.
There were warning signs, however, for Suri's camp.
The lone dissenter on the appeals panel, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, contended that Suri's race to a Virginia federal court gave short shrift to the parallel immigration and deportation proceedings. Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, worried that the intensifying rush by deportees to seek relief from federal courts was quickly becoming a way to frustrate immigration proceedings meant to be largely shielded from judicial review.
Allowing Suri's case to proceed in federal court and immigration court 'would presage a perennial clash of rulings and orders between two different sets of federal tribunals,' Wilkinson wrote.
Wilkinson predicted 'severe systemic damage' if immigration detainees are allowed to pursue legal challenges outside the immigration-court process.
But the appeals court's majority called Wilkinson's concern 'speculative' and said the dangers of parallel court cases paled compared to the risks of unwarranted and illegal detentions of immigrants.
'We cannot so easily consign an individual's liberty to the concerns of bureaucratic tidiness. The Constitution does not yield to administrative convenience, and due process is not suspended merely because two courts may be asked similar questions,' Wynn wrote. 'Our courts should not become sanctuaries for efficiency at the expense of justice.'
The Trump administration could ask the full bench of the 4th Circuit to take up the issue or appeal to the Supreme Court.
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