ICE Arrested the Leader of Wisconsin’s Biggest Islamic Group, Then Claimed His Green Card Was a Fraud
ICE is claiming that Sarsour, who has lived in the U.S. for 33 years, is a terrorist. His supporters say he's being punished for criticizing Israel.
Photo via Department of Homeland Security ICE
What exactly is the value of a green card for a foreign-born, permanent U.S. resident if the United States government can simply declare your more than 30 years of residency in the country null and void at the drop of a hat, because you’ve made an enemy of a U.S. ally that wields outsized influence? It’s cases like that of Wisconsin’s Salah Sarsour that illustrate these pitfalls in the protections supposedly afforded under U.S. law to those who are ultimately deemed undesirable by an increasingly fascistic state: One day you’re going about your business in your American community as you’ve done for three decades, and the next you’re sitting in an ICE detention facility awaiting expulsion to what the federal government insists is your “home” overseas, citing a coerced conviction from when you were a teenager.
Salah Salem Sarsour is a 52-year-old Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, and a very well known member of the Wisconsin Islamic community, given that he serves as the president of the state’s largest mosque, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. This week, he found himself ambushed and arrested by a squad of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, under grounds that he is a “foreign policy threat.” His supporters and compatriots, on the other hand, instead claim that Sarsour has been targeted by the U.S. government both for his statements against Israel, and as long-delayed retribution for the fact that he was convicted of crimes as a minor in the early 1990s by an Israeli military court. And wouldn’t you know it, those crimes are exactly what the Department of Homeland Security refers back to as indication that Sarsour is a “terrorist,” along with unsupported claims that he somehow received his green card fraudulently way back in 1998. Sarsour is now reportedly being held at a county jail in Indiana.
“Our government should not be doing the bidding of a foreign government,” said Sarsour’s attorney Munjed Ahmad. “There’s no question in my mind that this is to stifle the discourse on the Palestinian narrative.”
“The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cited Othman Atta, the executive director of the mosque, as saying that deportation documents focused on Sarsour’s arrest by Israeli authorities as a teenager living in the West Bank to argue he provided material support for extremists.”
Sarsour is 53 years old.
— Steve Held (@peoplesfabric.bsky.social) Apr 2, 2026 at 5:07 PM
His lawyers say that Sarsour was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has never possessed a criminal record in the United States, where he lives in the Milwaukee area with his wife and four adult children, all U.S. citizens. They likewise said the government was aware of his teenage conviction in Israel since the time he first entered the United States as a conditional resident in 1993. He ultimately obtained a green card in 1998 and has been a permanent U.S. resident ever since.
The Department of Homeland Security tells a rather different and far more colorful tale about the “terrorist,” via a press release quoting Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis, the woman who sat under the learning tree of former press secretary Tricia McLaughlin, one of the most enthusiastic liars to ever serve in either Trump administration. It justifies the arrest saying that Sarsour was “suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms.”
“Salah Salem Sarsour is a terrorist convicted for throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces,” says the press release’s quote from Lauren Bis. “This illegal alien from Jordan lied on his green card application to gain legal status in the U.S. Thanks to President Trump and ICE, this terrorist is out of American communities. This Administration will always put the safety of the American people FIRST and Make America Safe Again.”
Not mentioned: In what way Sarsour is meant to have “lied on his green card application,” which the press release does helpfully note was “under President Clinton,” because this is clearly meant to explain how such malfeasance could have occurred. As is typical for DHS in the era of Trump, the department loves to level both broad and specific accusations, and hates to provide any evidence in favor of those accusations. They note that “this criminal and terrorist will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”
Othman Atta, the executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, said that Salah Sarsour had for decades disputed the original conviction in Israel from when he was a teenager, saying that he had not only been abused for two years in detention to force a confession, but could not even understand the charges presented against him at the time in a language (Hebrew) he did not speak. The Israeli military courts and detention facilities in question have a reputation for prisoner deaths and abuse.
“The primary allegations are relating back to when he was a teenager in the West Bank,” said Atta to The New York Times. “He had been arrested, and this is something that he talked about quite a bit — how he was abused and tortured while in custody.” Speaking at a press conference Thursday, Atta also said the following: “He was targeted because of one thing, because he dared stand up to the Israeli army.”
Sarsour was convicted of vandalism as a teenager, 40 years ago, by an Israeli military court without due process. ICE says this makes him a “terrorist.”
— Sufism on Bluesky (@sufism.bsky.social) Apr 3, 2026 at 3:08 AM
Sarsour’s imprisonment has already drawn plenty of attention from the likes of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who said “this is another example of overreach and harm from the U.S. immigration authorities.” Even from across the ecumenical aisle, Sarsour has found vociferous support for the literal decades he’s spent building a community in Milwaukee.
“This appears to be just the latest example of how this administration seeks to silence opposition and intimidate those who speak and act differently,” said Rev. Paul D. Erickson, a Lutheran bishop in Milwaukee.
Now Sarsour’s wife and children are left to wonder how long he’ll languish in ICE custody, several states away, in the name of something that supposedly happened three decades ago, the captive of a government that feels no need to offer evidence of any of its claims. What, indeed, is a green card actually worth?
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