Wisconsin Mosque Leader Released After 80 Days in ICE Detention

Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, was released from immigration detention on 18 June after spending more than 80 days in custody. The Guardian reported that a federal judge determined he had probably been held in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights, a finding that would render the detention unlawful.

Sarsour, 53, was detained by ICE on 30 March while traveling to visit his elderly mother in Milwaukee, where he has lived since arriving from the West Bank in 1993.

He said at least 10 unmarked vehicles carrying armed agents in civilian clothing surrounded him before he was taken first to a facility near Chicago and later to one in Indiana. A permanent resident for nearly three decades and father of six US citizens, Sarsour has no criminal record in the United States. During his time in detention Sarsour lost more than 30 pounds.

He described the conditions as dehumanizing and said they recalled his earlier imprisonment by Israeli authorities in the West Bank. “The humiliation, the treatment by guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people down,” he said in his first interview after release. The Trump administration is continuing to seek his deportation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally approved a memo last year that labeled Sarsour deportable on the grounds that his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism. The Department of Homeland Security has claimed he was suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms; Sarsour denies both allegations.

Sarsour is scheduled to appear in Chicago federal court on Wednesday for the first substantive hearing in his immigration case.