Inside Badar Khan Suri's 2-month 'nightmare' ICE detainment

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4.1 • 954 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

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Summary

Georgetown University researcher Badar Khan Suri was arrested in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents while walking toward his Virginia home. The Trump administration has called him a threat to foreign policy, but Suri has not been charged with a crime and ICE agents never showed him a warrant. Suri speaks with Asma Khalid about his nearly two-month 'nightmare' detainment in facilities across Virginia, Louisiana and Texas, and why he still believes in American ideals.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Ira Glass of This American Life.
0:02.2	Each week on our show, we choose the theme, tell different stories on that theme.
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0:17.4	Some big, epic emotional stories and some weird funny stuff too. Download us,
0:22.6	This American Life.
0:23.6	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:27.6	If administration has done a small wrong to me or big wrong to me, everything should be upside down.
0:36.6	I should stop, start hating. I be upside down. I should start hating.
0:38.6	I never hate anyone.
0:40.0	I only love people because hate is evil.
0:42.6	It is extreme.
0:45.9	Bartharhan Suri, the Georgetown researcher jailed for months by the Trump administration is speaking out.
1:03.3	Thank you. by the Trump administration is speaking out. It's Monday, June 2nd, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBUR.
1:08.4	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:13.1	Today's show is all about one man who was threatened with deportation by the Trump
1:18.1	administration and accused of having ties to terrorism. A judge last month ordered his
1:23.9	release after two months of detention in conditions he describes as a nightmare.
1:29.6	Badr Han Suri is a postdoctoral researcher at Georgetown University, originally from India.
1:35.3	He's one of many international scholars and students tangled up in the Trump administration's
	...

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