Salah Sarsour, President of Wisconsin’s largest Islamic mosque
Abu Sabet: The president of Wisconsin’s largest Islamic mosque remains in federal custody after he was detained this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and now faces deportation after being accused of funding foreign terrorist organizations.
Salah Sarsour, a 53-year-old legal permanent U.S. resident, is being characterized by the Department of Homeland Security as a Palestinian community leader and terrorist who also lied on immigration forms to gain entry to the United States. Sarsour was arrested on March 30 during a targeted enforcement operation in Milwaukee.
Sarsour works as the volunteer president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. He has lived in the Milwaukee area for more than 30 years, officials said this week, and has been a business owner and community leader.
Lauren Bis, the assistant DHS secretary for public affairs, said that Sarsour was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli military members. Bis accused Sarsour of lying on his green card application.
DHS said that Sarsour was initially denied an immigrant visa to the United States while in Israel due to his conviction and for illegal attempts to possess weapons and ammunition.
Local officials, including Milwaukee’s mayor, criticized the arrest, calling Sarsour’s detainment politically motivated for speaking out against Israel. “There is no substantive evidence he has done anything wrong,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson wrote in a social media post. “This is another example of overreach and harm from the U.S. Immigration authorities.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley wrote in a social media post that Sarsour’s arrest “sends an unmistakable message directed at our Muslim and immigrant communities.” He added, “At a time when fear and anxieties are already heightened, this action from the Trump administration and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an attempt to deepen that fear and sow more division.”
In a statement, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee said that Sarsour was seized by the occupying Israeli forces and, as a teenager, was subjected to Israeli brutality and torture, and eventually tried and sentenced on fraudulent charges by an Israeli military court. Homeland Security officials said Sarsour arrived in the United States in 1993 as a conditional resident and obtained his green card in 1998. However, without stating which information on his green card application was untrue, DHS stated that Sarsour was arrested for lying on immigration paperwork.
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“Thanks to President Trump and ICE, this terrorist is out of American communities,” Bis said in a statement issued by DHS. “This Administration will always put the safety of the American people FIRST and Make America Safe Again.”
Sarsour’s attorney, Munjed Ahmad, did not immediately return a message from NewsNation on Friday. The Milwaukee immigration attorney said that Sarsour was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has no criminal record in the United States, NBC News reported.
Ahmad told NBC News that government officials had known about Sarsour’s previous conviction in Israel since the time he entered the United States. “Our government should not be doing the bidding of a foreign government,” Ahmad told NBC News. “There’s no question in my mind that this is to stifle the discourse on the Palestinian narrative.”
According to an online fundraising effort that has collected more than $110,000 as of Friday, Sarsour was detained by 10 ICE officers after he was pulled over shortly after leaving his home. The site said that Sarsour was then taken to an ICE processing center in Chicago before being sent to an ICE detention center in Indiana.
“Salah’s story represents precisely the immigrant-refugee success story that should be celebrated, not demonized, as the cornerstone of this country’s professed values,” organizers of the legal defense fund for Sarsour wrote.
DHS officials said that Sarsour will remain in ICE custody until he faces deportation hearings.
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