A Georgetown University scholar described the fear he felt when ICE agents detained him and took him to a facility hundreds of miles away from his home in Northern Virginia. “I saw a guy, masked, jumped out of this car, and then he said, 'Are you Badar?' I was shocked,” Badar Khan Suri told a town hall crowd at a Busboys and Poets on 14th Street NW Tuesday night. “How he knows my name? He was masked, he was not wearing any kind of uniform, no badges, nothing, he looked like a proper militia guy. How he knows my name? I said, I was, like, petrified.” Agents arrested Khan Suri outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, in March. The agents identified themselves as being with the Department of Homeland Security. The Trump administration revoked his visa and claimed he was a threat to national security because his wife's family had ties to Hamas. “They said, 'Someone very high in the secretary of state’s office doesn't want you here.' I said, 'OK, why would the secretary of state and all this know about me? Who am I?' And they said, 'We will deport you.' And I said, 'What?'" Khan Suri's wife, Maphaz Ahmad Yousef, an American citizen who is originally from Gaza, is also a student at Georgetown. Her father, Ahmed Yousef, is a former adviser to now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. In an interview with The New York Times, Ahmed Yousef said he left his position more than a decade ago. He has also been outspoken in his criticism of Hamas. At the Busboys and Poets event, Khan Suri described being shackled and put in a small car without any explanation of what was happening or why, and said he was not allowed to speak to his family. “They could literally have disappeared me,” he said. A federal judge in Alexandria ordered Khan Suri's release from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in May, saying he hadn't been accused or convicted of a crime. His detention was in violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and his Fifth Amendment right to due process, U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said. Organizers of the town hall event said they want to spread the word about what happened to Khan Suri. “If you know anything about authoritarian transitions or authoritarian takeovers, they start with trial balloons,” said Nader Hashemi, who teaches Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “They go after the weak, they go after the vulnerable, they go after people who aren’t American citizens or on visas. And if they’re successful, then they’re coming after you and me.” Khan Suri’s lawyers said they are preparing for a long legal battle. They say he has not been charged with a crime and they have not seen an arrest warrant or the evidence used to revoke his visa. “It’s important for the government to show its math. And we intend to hold their feet to the fire and make them prove every inch of their case," his attorney, Hasan Ahmad, said. Khan Suri’s next hearing in immigration court is set for July. Get the D.C. area's top news and weather delivered to your inbox every morning. Sign up for First & 4Most, our free newsletter.