Wisconsin Muslim Cleric Hate
Deportation Hearings Begin for Milwaukee Muslim Leader Who Lied on His Visa Application
JUL 27, 2026 10:00 AM
BY HUGH FITZGERALD
Salah Salem Sarsour is a Jordanian citizen, now resident in the United
States. He is also the president of the Islamic Society of
Milwaukee. The government wishes to deport him because he lied on his
immigration forms, failing to disclose his conviction in Israel for
terrorist acts, including throwing Molotov cocktails at the houses of
Israeli soldiers. He was taken into custody in March, and has been
fighting deportation hearings ever since. The government also charges
Sarsour with supporting foreign terror groups while in this country. In
late June, a federal judge has ordered him to be released from custody
while he continues to contest his deportation. Several days ago, his
deportation hearing began. More on this alarming case can be found
here: “Man detained by ICE believes his advocacy for Palestinian rights
made him a target,” by Leila Fadel, NPR, July 21, 2026: NPR’s Leila
Fadel talks with Salah Sarsour, who was detained by ICE and later
released after a federal judge found he had a “substantial” First
Amendment retaliation claim….
FADEL: Last month, a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered Sarsour’s
release. The judge said Sarsour had raised a, quote, “substantial”
First Amendment retaliation claim, and that Sarsour’s speech on
Palestinian rights is protected.
SARSOUR: He gave me hope in the system. This judge make me feel, wait a
minute, there’s still righteous people. There are still fair people
here in the system.
How, one wonders, does the First Amendment enter into this case?
Sarsour lied on his immigration papers. Has lying become protected
speech? Or does U.S. District Judge James P. Hanlon see this attempt to
deport him only as a way for the government to punish Sarsour for his
support — mainly financing — for jihad terror groups, which the judge
believes is protected speech under the First Amendment? Many
constitutional legal authorities do not consider support for terror
groups to be protected speech. Of course, these are two independent
reasons to deport him. First, for lying to the government about his
previous arrest in Israel for a terror-related offense (those Molotov
cocktails he threw at the houses of IDF soldiers). Second, for whatever
activities he has engaged in during his time in the U.S. that, the
government can argue, provide support for terrorism. That is not
protected speech.
Judge Hanlon thinks that the government’s failure to act against
Sarsour over the past 25 years undermines its right, now, to deport
him. Past failures by the government to act against him do not,
however, justify preventing the government from at long last taking
action.
The government should perhaps have stuck to its original charge:
Sarsour lied on his immigration papers, and he deserves for that reason
alone to be deported. By bringing up his pro-Palestinian activities,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has provided the judge with the argument
that the government is punishing him for his exercise of free speech.
However, I think that in the end, the government will provide
convincing evidence of Sarsour’s continuing support — most likely
financing — for terror groups in the Middle East, while he has been in
this country, and that will be an independent reason for deporting him.
In the deportation hearings, Sarsour’s defense team has made the same
argument: “Deportation hearing begins for Milwaukee Muslim leader Salah
Sarsour,” by Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio, July 22,
2026: “Why should people care about this case? Because targeting Mr.
Sarsour is all about sending a signal, not to speak up for Palestinian
rights,” said Patrick Taurel, Sarsour’s lead immigration attorney.
Sarsour was incarcerated in Israeli prisons twice, once as a teenager
in the late 1980s, and again at the age of 22 in 1994, after he had
been approved for a visa and moved to the United States. His team
alleges that he returned to visit family, was arrested trying to return
to America, and tortured during that detention. They said he was forced
to sign documents confessing to crimes he didn’t understand.
Sarsour was granted a green card in 1998.
The deportation proceedings continue. And either his immigration fraud,
or his support for terrorism, or both, should be enough to lead to the
consummation devoutly to be wished. That is, with Salah Salem Sarsour
soon winging his way back to Amman.
After over 80 days in ICE detention, Palestinian Wisconsin mosque leader, once jailed in Israel, cries victimhood
JUL 22, 2026 1:00 PM
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
When you read between the lines of the long-winded, rambling article
below, you’ll realize that Salah Sarsour is nothing more than a
violent-minded proponent of the Palestinian “resistance,” from the
(Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea. He is full-on committed to
exploiting American freedoms to expand the globalize the intifada
movement, even as he now sits in ICE detention, clawing for leftist
sympathies. He got plenty of it from the Guardian.
Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque and board member
with American Muslims for Palestine, once also sat in an Israeli jail
cell for “throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed
forces and illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition.”
Any guesses what Salah Sarsour might have intended to do with the weapons and ammunition in Israel?
Sarsour is a jihadist. Yet here he is on American soil despite the fact
that he is an enemy to America, while the Guardian promotes him as a
victim — a common subterfuge that Islamic supremacists employ; it works
well on leftist useful idiots.
Salah Sarsour is a convicted foreign criminal who has no business
stirring up trouble in America, a country he regards as an enemy land
to exploit and ultimately destroy. Yet the article below also discusses
how “civil rights groups” defend him, including the Hamas-linked
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is one of them. CAIR still
manages to deceive people into thinking it’s a “civil rights” and
“human rights” group.
“Muslim leader speaks out after more than 80 days in ICE detention: ‘It
brought back memories from Palestine,’” Guardian, July 21, 2026: The
president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque said he was subjected to
“dehumanizing” treatment during more than 80 days in federal
immigration custody – treatment that reminded him of the time he spent
in Israeli military prisons in occupied Palestine nearly four decades
ago.
“It all brought back old memories of things that happened to me when I
was tried in Palestine,” said Salah Sarsour in his first interview
since being released last month. “The humiliation, the treatment by
guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people
down.” He said he lost more than 30lb while in immigration detention.
Sarsour, who was born in the West Bank and has been a US permanent
resident for nearly three decades, was detained by US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement in March and released after a federal judge found
he had probably been detained in retaliation of his advocacy for
Palestinian rights – a likelihood the judge said would render his
detention unlawful. The Trump administration is continuing to seek his
deportation and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, personally
signed off on a memo last year describing Sarsour as deportable,
because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism
around the world”.
Sarsour believes his detention was a blatant attempt by the Trump
administration to intimidate people out of denouncing Israel’s actions
in Gaza.
“They thought that by arresting me they would scare people fighting for
justice for Palestinians, but it’s the opposite,” he said.
Sarsour, 53, is the owner of several businesses, the father of six US
citizens and grandfather of nine – with a 10th grandchild on the way.
He is also a prominent community leader in Milwaukee, where he has
lived since moving to the US in 1993 with his wife to build a family in
a place where he could “live freely”, he said….