A United States immigration judge has ruled the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque can be deported under a controversial law that United States President Donald Trump’s administration has used against non-citizens advocating for Palestinian rights.
Judge Jayme Salinardi ruled on Wednesday that Palestinian-born Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, can be removed from the US based in part on a memo by Secretary of State Marco Rubio that “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”, according to his lawyers.
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Sarsour, who has lived in the US for more than three decades, called the ruling “deeply disappointing”.
“I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades,” he told The Associated Press news agency.
His lawyer, Patrick Taurel, strongly rejected the decision.
“I wish the world could see the evidence that we presented and hear the testimony that the court heard because the case we presented compels only one conclusion, which is that Salah is not deportable,” Taurel told reporters on Wednesday.
“He’s done nothing wrong. He should be given back his green card, frankly, with an apology for what’s being done to him.”
The ruling does not mean Sarsour will be immediately deported.
His lawyers have 60 days to argue that sending Sarsour back would put him at risk of torture, which could protect him from deportation under the Convention Against Torture. If they lose, they plan to appeal. Taurel said he can’t be deported while that appeal is pending and will remain in the US for the “foreseeable future”.
‘Extreme deference’
Sarsour was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Milwaukee in March, nine months after Rubio issued a memo declaring him deportable on foreign policy grounds.
The June 2025 memo invoked a rarely-used US law that allows the Secretary of State to seek the deportation of non-citizens whose presence could have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” The administration has used the same provision against pro-Palestinian activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.
Sarsour’s lawyers criticised the “extreme deference” Salinardi gave to Rubio’s memo. But Taurel said the judge believed his hands were tied by an earlier ruling in Khalil’s case, which found that a letter from the Secretary of State could be enough to make someone deportable on foreign policy grounds.
That meant Salinardi could not look behind Rubio’s decision to examine the evidence supporting it, Taurel said.
“If the Secretary of State says the person is deportable, it is game over,” he told reporters Wednesday.
The government did not win on all of its arguments.
Salinardi rejected its allegation that Sarsour had lied on his green card application. Taurel said the judge also rejected an allegation that Sarsour had falsely claimed to be a US citizen in order to vote.
Al Jazeera reached out to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security but did not receive responses by the time of publication.
Decades-old convictions
Sarsour is separately fighting the Trump administration in federal court over his detention while his deportation case is ongoing.
A federal judge ordered his release from ICE custody in June after 81 days, questioning why decades-old convictions that US authorities had long known about suddenly justified detaining him. The judge found there was a “substantial” case that the government was retaliating against him for speaking out about Palestinian rights.
The Trump administration has appealed his release, arguing that Sarsour’s convictions in Israel make him a security threat. He was imprisoned in 1988 after confessing to throwing stones and a Molotov cocktail at Israeli military personnel, and was convicted again in 1995 over an attempt to hold weapons.
Sarsour denies the offences, and his lawyers say the confessions were forced through torture. His former lawyer, Jawad Boulos, testified in August that Sarsour was coerced into signing confessions and was not convicted of an offence tying him to a “terrorist” organisation.
Taurel criticised Salinardi for giving what he called “extreme deference” to Israeli government records submitted by ICE, which Sarsour’s lawyers argue were incomplete and relied on confessions obtained through torture.
“A great deal of evidence we presented was ignored,” Taurel said.
The evidence challenged Israel’s military court system, where he said secret evidence can be used and Palestinians can be denied access to lawyers for extended periods.
Luna Droubi, an attorney representing Sarsour, said the case raises broader questions about whether immigrants can speak freely on political issues without fear of being targeted by the government.
“Why raise these arrests now?” she said. “Do I have the right to speak out about issues that matter to me? What if I draw a political cartoon? Am I going to be arrested and detained because of that?”
‘The end of my life’
Sarsour said being deported to the occupied West Bank “means the end of my life”.
His lawyers argue his prior treatment in Israeli custody shows he could face torture if sent back. Taurel said Sarsour’s former lawyer testified that his case stood out because Sarsour told him that Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, had taken him to hospital while in custody.
The judge also named Jordan as a possible destination. Sarsour travelled to the US on a Jordanian-issued document, but his lawyers say he is not a Jordanian citizen and has no right to live there. They believe he could ultimately be returned to the West Bank and Israeli custody if sent to Jordan.