An immigration judge ruled on Wednesday that the United States can deport the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, saying he is a threat to national security.

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian rights advocate, was detained in Milwaukee in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.

According to NBC News, a federal judge ordered Sarsour’s release in June after he raised a “substantial” claim that the Trump administration targeted him for speaking out against Israel.

Sarsour intends to appeal the ruling, calling it “deeply disappointing.”

“I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades,” he said in a statement, according to NBC News.

ADVERTISEMENT

NBC News shared further:

Government attorneys say Sarsour’s decades-old convictions in Israel make him a threat to national security and accuse him of lying on his green card application and falsely claiming citizenship to vote. Judge Jayme Salinardi, with the Chicago Immigration Court, found him removable on foreign policy grounds but tossed out the government’s claim that Sarsour lied to immigration authorities.

“All illegal aliens receive due process,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”

Sarsour, who was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after being convicted of throwing stones at Israeli military personnel. DHS has said he was also convicted of throwing a Molotov cocktail. His defense team says he was accused of that but not convicted. In 1995, he was convicted of attempting to possess weapons. Sarsour denies committing those crimes and his attorneys say he was tortured and coerced into confessing in both instances.

Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, does not have a criminal record in the U.S., where he has lived since 1993. His attorneys say the U.S. government has known about Sarsour’s convictions in Israel since he arrived.

Deportation to the West Bank “means the end of my life,” Sarsour told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

“TERRORIST ARRESTED. @ICEgov arrested Salah Salem Sarsour, a Jordanian national with a prior conviction for throwing a MOLOTOV COCKTAIL at the homes of Israeli Forces. He also lied on his green card application to get legal status under President Clinton,” DHS wrote in April.

“Thanks to the brave men and women of ICE, this terrorist is OUT of our communities,” it added.

DHS shared this reaction to the news of the immigration judge’s ruling:

More from the Associated Press:

ADVERTISEMENT

One of his attorneys, Patrick Taurel, said Sarsour’s treatment by Israeli authorities is “probably a good indicator of what awaits him” if he is deported.

At a status hearing Wednesday, Taurel pressed the judge to specify that Sarsour can only be deported to Israel or the Palestinian territories. Jordan, a country to which Sarsour has no connection, is listed as a possible destination on the order of removal.

Sarsour was instructed by immigration officers to list Jordan as his home country on an immigration form because his preferred entry — “Palestine” — is not a fully independent, unified state. But he “has no right to reside in Jordan,” Taurel said.

Salinardi declined, saying that can be addressed on appeal.

If sent to Jordan, Sarsour “would just be immediately handed off to Israel,” Taurel said during a news conference Wednesday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo in June 2025 invoking a rarely used immigration provision saying Sarsour could be deported on the same grounds as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both advocates for Palestinian rights whom the Trump administration has tried to expel, according to court documents.

DHS said in its statement that Rubio “has reasonable grounds to believe Sarsour’s presence would have adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S., and he has engaged in terrorist activity or supported a terrorist organization.”

 

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.