Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour Abducted by ICE

Islamic Society of Milwaukee held an emergency press conference demanding Sarsour’s immediate release, attended by hundreds of community members and leaders.

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On Monday, March 30, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents abducted Islamic Society of Milwaukee (ISM) president Salah Sarsour after following him from his home. That morning, as many as 12 ICE vehicles approached and surrounded Sarsour just a few minutes away from ISM on Milwaukee’s South Side before taking him into custody. ISM (815 W. Layton Ave.) held an emergency press conference on Thursday, April 2 demanding Sarsour’s immediate release, attended by hundreds of community members and leaders showing up in solidarity with Sarsour and ISM.

After first being sent to Illinois where his case is being adjudicated, Sarsour is currently being held at an ICE detention facility near Terre Haute, Indiana, where Milwaukee leaders surmise judges and courts are preferential to the Trump administration and its ICE operations.

“Everyone who Salah Sarsour knows thinks that he’s their best friend.” A Palestinian American, Sarsour is a stalwart community leader, having served as ISM president for the last five years and been a longtime advocate for a free Palestine. He has been a lawful permanent resident of the United States for at least 32 years with no criminal record or convictions. Described by many as “a family man” with a lovable personality, Sarsour and his wife have six children and nine grandchildren.

While many local officials issued statements Thursday condemning Sarsour’s abduction by ICE, a number of them failed to even mention that he is Palestinian, terminating context as to why he is being detained. “They specifically targeted him because he is a champion for Palestinian rights,” immigrant rights attorney Munjed Ahmad affirmed. “Salah Sarsour is fearless when it comes to discussing things of justice and he refused to be silenced. This has nothing to do with anything besides Palestine.”

Politically Targeted?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that Sarsour had lied on his green card application about a conviction from when he was living in Palestine as a teenager, therefore deeming him a national security threat. However, Sarsour was only 15 at the time of said conviction, and a U.S. consulate officer had visited him while he was incarcerated in Palestine a second time in 1995, which indicates DHS has long known of his conviction.

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This further suggests that Sarsour is being politically targeted for his pro-Palestine activism. ISM executive director Othman Atta pointed out how the same justification for ICE’s 2024 arrest and detainment of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian American Columbia University student deemed by Senator Marco Rubio “a threat to the foreign policy of the United States” for his pro-Palestine activism, is now being used against Sarsour. “They cannot go against him for violating freedom of speech rights, so they’re using immigration laws as a way to target and deport him,” Atta said. “They want to criminalize advocacy for Palestine and those who want to expose what our country is doing by supporting an apartheid system which has committed genocide and is committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.”

Thursday’s press conference began with Atta identifying Sarsour’s many positive qualities from his leadership skills to his humanitarian spirit to being a “big teddy bear” on account of his warm, friendly nature. Atta proceeded to give context to Sarsour’s past arrests and detail his run-in with the Israeli military court, which has a 99.7% conviction rate for Palestinians, according to an American Muslims For Palestine report.

Fraudulent Charges

Atta explained, “When he was 15 years old, he was arrested by the military occupation authorities of Israel and eventually charged with whatever crimes they decided to charge him with after he had been held without charge for some time. He served two years. Many of you know his passion for Palestine and justice was based on experiences he, his family and friends had. For 80 straight days he was interrogated and brutalized and tortured while he was in Israeli military custody. He came to the United States. He went to visit one time in 1995, and the Israelis arrested him again and held him for 133 days and manufactured some fraudulent charges. All of the charges that were given to him were written in Hebrew, which he doesn’t understand. Anyone who is Palestinian will tell you that we don’t regard that as violating the law because the ones who are illegally occupying our country are the Israelis.”

Sarsour’s oldest son Kareem went up to speak next and mentioned that he and his family had been bombarded with calls and messages over the previous few days from folks sharing how much Sarsour means to them. “It just tells you who he is,” Kareem stated, who then disclosed how Sarsour had lost his father at only five years old, and when he was released from Israeli prison as a teenager he was unable to resume his education, which is why Sarsour pushed for his children to have a college degree. “He is the person you call if you feel down or have a problem, or to cheer you up, or if you just want to hear a joke,” Kareem added.

ISM’s Imam Rami Bleibel likened Sarsour’s path to that of various heroic religious figures who had also been persecuted for their justice-centered beliefs. “What they all have in common is that they stood up and advocated and became the voice of the voiceless and the vulnerable, and that is what Salah represents. That is the character of our dear friend and leader.”

Religious Leaders Come Together

Rev. Paul Erickson, who is involved with the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee as well as Wisconsin Christians for Justice in Palestine, added his voice to the chorus of those demanding justice for Salah Sarsour as well. “This all takes place in the midst of high holy times for many of the world’s religions. This is also a time when the streets of Palestine, which are normally overflowing with pilgrims during this holy season, are mostly empty. People are living in fear trying to escape the violence that surrounds them. If we’ve learned anything over the centuries, it’s that we cannot let fear silence us. We must stand firm and together and embrace the truth that none of us are free until all of us are free.”

Immigration historian and justice advocate and member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Rachel Buff,began her speech by leading chants to free Salah Sarsour. “We know that when they come for Salah Sarsour, they come for all of us. Right now, immigrants are bearing the brunt of a wave of brutal repression. This administration, with its devastating and unpopular policies in the United States and around the world, wants to silence all authentic voices of resistance—Salah Sarsour’s voice, your voice and my voice. Courts have ruled that detention for political beliefs is unlawful under the United States constitution, which is still the law of the land.”

Fauzia Qureshi, executive director of Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance (WMCA), describes having seen Sarsour over the years show up for families in crisis, for young people who need a positive role model and for neighbors in need of someone in their corner. “He is not just a community leader; he is the kind of man that this country claims to celebrate. This is not a routine immigration enforcement action; this is a targeted, politically-motivated arrest designed to send a message to every Palestinian, every Muslim and every immigrant in the city: be silent or we will silence you. We know this playbook.”

In fact, Sarsour’s detention came just days after Governor Tony Evers signed AB 446, which adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism into state law. Many Wisconsin human rights and advocacy groups have condemned AB 446 for its potential suppression of First Amendment-protected speech regarding criticism of Israeli policy.

Qureshi touched on AB 446, lamenting how WMCA and other groups fervently lobbied and organized against it, sounding the alarm to state legislators and the governor over the dangerous precedent it sets - to no avail. “They passed it anyway, and Brother Sarsour, a man who spent decades advocating for Palestinians, immigrants and working people in this state, is sitting in a detention center in Indiana. Do you think that is a coincidence? We don’t. They chose Brother Sarsour because he is visible, because he is effective, because he leads, and because they think arresting him would make the rest of us feel smaller.”

Silencing the People

Munjed Ahmad of American Muslims For Palestine (AMP) acknowledged Sarsour as one of his very best friends, vowing that he would go to death for him. Ahmad made it known that he became an attorney based on his strong belief in the U.S. Constitution, yet now he sees due process being blatantly disregarded by President Trump’s administration as he does the bidding of a criminal foreign government. “Let’s be very clear that what’s happening here is an affront to our constitution and an attempt to silence the masses. Polls are clear. People in the United States have woken up. They have seen the ugly face of Israel and are more sympathetic to Palestine for the first time in history.”

He continued, “There has not been a person who has been arrested, persecuted and abducted by the government who has such a high profile. This is how Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and those criminal Epstein men think that they’re going to silence the voices for Palestine, but no—they’ve just awoken the giant.” Ahmed had in fact spoken to Sarsour earlier that day, relaying the message that “he is a tiger and will not go down without a fight!”

Janan Najeeb, executive director of the Muslim Women’s Coalition and co-chair of the Wisconsin Coalition For Justice in Palestine, contended that Sarsour is the litmus test for not only the Milwaukee community but the U.S. at large. “He was abducted for being outspoken against Israel’s ongoing genocide. Make no mistake—he is a political prisoner.” She also noted how Sarsour’s abduction came within just days of the pro-Israel blacklist organization Canary Mission publicizing fabricated information about Sarsour being a “Hamas activist.”

Najeeb assured, “The abduction and detention of Salah will not impact the work of human rights activists and those who believe Palestinian Muslim and Christian children and adults deserve justice. They deserve to live and not be victims of Epstein-style sexual abuse and torture. This administration and its bully ICE agents will not destroy our democracy, nor will they silence us when it comes to Palestine or any other genocide or illegal wars they employ. Palestine is the civil rights issue of our time.”

ISM and AMP are currently assembling a legal team, working with Muslim Legal Fund of America, with Ahmad remarking, “I am shocked at how many attorneys have contacted me begging to help Salah Sarsour.” A hearing is scheduled April 13. In the meantime, a crowdfunding campaign has been launched by community members to assist Sarsour and his family with legal expenses.