Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin's largest mosque and a US permanent resident for nearly three decades, said his more than 80 days in federal immigration custody subjected him to “dehumanizing” treatment that reminded him of time 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,” Sarsour said 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 detention.
Detention and legal battle
Sarsour, born in the West Bank, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March and released after a federal judge found he had probably been detained in retaliation for his advocacy of Palestinian rights – a likelihood the judge said would render his detention unlawful. The Trump administration continues to seek his deportation, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio 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 an 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.
Background and community role
Sarsour, 53, is the owner of several businesses, father of six US citizens and grandfather of nine, with a tenth grandchild on the way. He is a prominent community leader in Milwaukee, where he has lived since moving to the US in 1993 with his wife to build a family where he could “live freely”.
On 30 March, he was on his way to see his elderly mother when he was surrounded by at least 10 unmarked vehicles and armed agents in civilian clothing and taken first to a detention center near Chicago and later to a facility in Indiana.
Condemnation and allegations
His detention drew condemnation from civil rights groups, community members and legislators, as well as protests outside the detention center. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment but has claimed Sarsour was “suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms”. He has denied both claims.
In a statement after his arrest, DHS cited Sarsour’s decades-old military court convictions in Israel for, it said, “throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed forces and illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition”. Sarsour says those accusations stem from an arrest as a teenager by Israeli soldiers in 1989 during the first intifada. He says he was forced, under torture and threat of rape, to sign documents in Hebrew without understanding them. He spent two years in an Israeli prison after being convicted in a military court system for Palestinians that has a conviction rate of over 96%. Sarsour was again detained by Israeli authorities for nearly three months when he last visited Palestine in 1995.
Legal proceedings and impact
Sarsour is due in court in Chicago on Wednesday for the first substantive hearing in his immigration case, while a case considering the legality of his detention moves through federal court. His attorneys have argued the government fast-tracked his immigration case to make a political point. “They use the immigration court as a tool for their immigration enforcement policies,” said Samuel Cole, a former immigration judge and senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which is representing Sarsour.
Cole added that Sarsour’s case echoes those of Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa Kordia and others detained over pro-Palestinian activism, but is particularly alarming given he has legally lived in the US for decades and the government has known about his record in Israel for years. According to court documents, the US government evaluated Sarsour’s arrests in Israel several times since 2000 while determining his eligibility for naturalization.
Sarsour, who has no criminal record in the US, initially thought agents had mistaken him for someone else. When they tried to get him to sign paperwork agreeing to deportation, he refused. “I was very confused,” he said. Only as his ordeal protracted into days did he realize he had been targeted for his activism. “That really shocked me to be honest,” he said.
Conditions in detention
Sarsour, who is diabetic, said he was denied daily blood sugar level checks, and the food was so bad “you don’t know what you’re eating sometimes”. He slept on a 2in mattress with a thin blanket in a freezing room shared with dozens of other men. When he asked to congregate for Friday prayers and to celebrate Eid, he was told he couldn’t.
A month after his release, Sarsour said he was haunted by his time in detention and didn't feel like the same person. He knows he faces a lengthy court battle but said he had nothing to hide. “We have a mission: let’s continue to make our voice clear, to protect the first amendment, to support justice,” he said. “I’ll continue with that message whether I’m inside or outside.”
