Biography
Salah Sarsour, age 53, is a Palestinian-American lawful permanent resident and the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest mosque in Wisconsin. Born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, he came to the United States in 1993 and has lived here for over thirty years. His wife and four adult children are U.S. citizens. He has no U.S. criminal record.
On the morning of April 1, 2026, nearly a dozen ICE agents surrounded his car as he left his Milwaukee home and detained him. He was transferred to a county jail in Indiana operating under ICE contract. The government invoked Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act — the so-called foreign policy deportability ground — claiming Secretary of State decision-making had determined his presence in the country poses a foreign-policy threat. The same statutory provision was used against Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and other Palestinian-solidarity organizers in 2025-2026.
The Department of Homeland Security cited a juvenile-era Israeli military-court conviction from when Sarsour was 15 (allegedly throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank) — a record the U.S. government has known about for thirty years. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, and ten Muslim civil-rights organizations issued a joint letter denouncing the arrest as targeting Sarsour for his Palestinian and Muslim background. Wisconsin elected officials and Milwaukee clergy joined calls for his release. His attorneys filed a habeas petition seeking immediate release.
