A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of foreign Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri from immigration detention, rebuking the Trump administration’s use of a Cold War-era law to justify Suri’s deportation over praise of and familial links to the terrorist group Hamas.

Suri, a postdoctoral fellow in the United States on a student visa who has lived in Northern Virginia with his wife and three children since 2022, has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Texas since March. His arrest and subsequent transfer to a detention facility near Dallas sparked campus protests and drew national attention amid broader crackdowns on student activism over the Israel-Gaza war.