A divided three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled on July 23, 2026 that Georgetown University scholar Badar Khan Suri must remain free, rejecting the Trump administration's bid to re-detain him and affirming a lower court's May 2025 release order.

The 2-1 decision, reported by Al Jazeera on July 24, held that federal immigration law did not bar a district court judge from ordering Khan Suri's release. The majority sided with Khan Suri's constitutional claims, finding that his detention violated his due process and free speech rights under the US Constitution. The panel also rejected the administration's request to transfer the case from Virginia to Texas (Al Jazeera).

Khan Suri, an Indian citizen and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, was arrested outside his Virginia home in March 2025 by masked Homeland Security agents as part of the Trump administration's broader crackdown on foreign nationals engaged in pro-Palestinian activism on US college campuses (AP News). A federal judge barred his deportation on March 20, 2025 (Reuters), and a judge granted him bail in May 2025, leading to his release from ICE custody on May 14, 2025 (ACLU) (Reuters).

The Fourth Circuit's ruling is notable for its constitutional reasoning. Rather than resting on narrow statutory grounds, the majority validated Khan Suri's First and Fifth Amendment claims, signaling judicial willingness to scrutinize immigration enforcement actions that appear to target protected speech. The administration had invoked a provision of immigration law allowing the secretary of state to remove individuals deemed to have "adverse foreign policy consequences" for the United States (Al Jazeera).

Eden Heilman, legal director of the ACLU in Virginia, which is representing Khan Suri, disclosed that ICE transferred Khan Suri among five different detention facilities across three states during his custody (Al Jazeera). Georgetown students and academics staged demonstrations calling for his release (AP News), and his wife held a sign demanding his freedom at a demonstration in Alexandria, Virginia, on May 1, 2025 (AP News). The Georgetown Voice and The Hoya, both student newspapers at Georgetown University, reported the appeals court ruling on July 23 (Georgetown Voice) (The Hoya).

The Fourth Circuit's decision cuts against the grain of recent rulings from other circuits in parallel cases. On July 21, 2026, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that had freed Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi (Al Jazeera). A separate appeals court similarly ruled that the district judge who ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil lacked authority to do so, though Khalil was permitted to remain free pending Supreme Court review.

This circuit split frames the stakes. The cases of Khan Suri, Khalil, and Mahdawi turn on a common set of questions: whether the executive branch can use immigration law provisions to detain and remove non-citizen residents based on their political expression, and whether federal district courts have jurisdiction to order release under habeas or constitutional grounds. The Supreme Court is likely to take up one or more of these cases to resolve the conflicting appellate rulings (Al Jazeera).

The Court's composition adds weight to that prospect. The current bench holds a six-to-three conservative majority, including three justices appointed by President Trump (Al Jazeera).

Looking at the trajectory, the Fourth Circuit's constitutional holding is the strongest judicial endorsement yet of the argument that the administration's use of immigration enforcement against pro-Palestinian activists implicates core First Amendment protections. But the divergent outcomes across circuits mean the durability of that reasoning depends on how the Supreme Court approaches the intersection of immigration law, foreign policy discretion, and constitutional speech. The administration's statutory tool, the "adverse foreign policy consequences" provision, grants the secretary of state considerable latitude, and the Court will need to define the limits of that discretion when it collides with constitutional rights.