Free Speech For People today submitted an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in support of Dr. Badar Khan Suri and his right to have his writ of habeas corpus heard by a U.S. federal district court. Without this right, the Trump Administration will be able to abuse its authority to indefinitely and unconstitutionally imprison Dr. Khan Suri because it doesn’t like his speech or his family associations. 

Dr. Khan Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, here on a J-1 exchange visa. He is married to a U.S. citizen, with whom he shares three children. On March 17, 2025, after Secretary of State Rubio secretly revoked his visa, Dr. Khan Suri was kidnapped by masked federal agents, moved through multiple immigration detention facilities, and finally imprisoned in Texas, in inhumane conditions. He remained in detention for 58 days, separated from his family, attorneys, and community, until he was released after a federal district court judge granted his writ of habeas corpus. 

The reason for his detention? The Trump Administration didn’t like that his wife exercised her right to free speech to speak in support of Gazans, and his father-in-law served as an advisor to a Hamas leader a decade ago. When Dr. Khan Suri filed a writ of habeas corpus, the federal district court correctly concluded that Dr. Khan Suri should not be detained before his immigration case is resolved.

The Government is now demanding that the Fourth Circuit bar the federal district court from hearing Dr. Khan Suri’s detention-related writ of habeas corpus—and indeed, bar all federal district courts from hearing any writ of habeas corpus brought by any non-citizen in the country to challenge their immigration detention. The consequences would be disastrous and unconstitutional. 

The First Amendment affords us all the right to free speech and association, and extends to anyone in our country. But this right, like any individual right, has no substance if the government is allowed to abusively and arbitrarily imprison people for exercising it. The writ of habeas corpus provides this substance. It is the primary mechanism through which people can challenge arbitrary and unconstitutional detention, and it is so important that our Founders enshrined the writ of habeas corpus into our Constitution. 

In its brief, FSFP traces the history of the writ of habeas corpus and its importance to our country’s Framers. Our Founders and Framers—protestors, agitators, and colonists who were excluded from the protections of the writ by the British government—understood that the writ serves two purposes: to protect individual liberties, and to prevent a government from becoming a tyranny. FSFP’s brief reviews the powerfully important role the writ has played from our country’s founding, and explains why Dr. Khan Suri is entitled to challenge his pre-hearing detention via a writ of habeas corpus in federal district court. 

The Trump Administration is illegally and unconstitutionally imprisoning people who engage in disfavored speech, subjecting them to lengthy and deplorable conditions of confinement. The writ has already served as a powerful tool that empowers people to challenge unjust and unconstitutional detentions. But it only works if our most vulnerable residents have access to the courts. This is why the Trump Administration now is trying to deprive federal district courts of jurisdiction to hear Dr. Khan Suri’s case, and it is why the court must reject the Trump Administration’s argument, which is not supported by our laws or our Constitution.

“The courts should not stand for these attempts to deprive Dr. Khan Suri or anyone else in our country of access to an essential tool that can protect them from being unjustly imprisoned for their speech,” said Suparna Reddy, Senior Counsel at Free Speech For People. “The Trump Administration is abusing immigration detention to silence people who say things they don’t like. That is not only deeply un-American, it is unconstitutional, unlawful, and should not be tolerated by our courts.”

FSFP is honored to submit this brief in support of Dr. Khan Suri and his important case.

To read our amicus brief, click here.