An immigration judge ruled the Trump administration can deport the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque on national security grounds, a fight he now plans to continue on appeal.
A Chicago immigration judge found Salah Sarsour removable from the United States after the government tied his case to foreign-policy and national-security concerns, handing federal authorities a major win in a closely watched deportation fight.
Fox News reported that the judge ruled Wednesday that authorities can remove Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, on national security grounds. Sarsour, a Jordanian national and longtime lawful permanent resident, pledged to appeal.
The ruling advances a case built by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department under President Trump. It also keeps alive a clash over old convictions in Israel, speech about Gaza, and how far immigration law can reach when officials cite foreign-policy harm.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked federal immigration law in June 2025. He determined Sarsour’s presence in the United States could carry potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.
A DHS spokesperson said Rubio had “reasonable grounds to believe Sarsour’s presence would have adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S., and he has engaged in terrorist activity or supported a terrorist organization.”
That same spokesperson framed the broader enforcement line under Trump:
"Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S."
DHS also said illegal aliens receive due process. Court records described in coverage identify Sarsour as a lawful permanent resident, a status his lawyers stress and that sits in tension with the harsher label in the department’s arrest announcement.
ICE agents, working with the U.S. Marshals Service, arrested Sarsour in a targeted Milwaukee operation in March. DHS described him in announcement language as a criminal illegal alien from Jordan suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms.
He was held in a county jail in Indiana. A photo caption tied to the case shows him smiling on Thursday, June 18, 2026, shortly after release from that jail. A federal judge had ordered him freed after finding a substantial claim that the enforcement action retaliated for protected speech, including criticism of Israel.
Reuters reported he was detained in late March and released in mid-June, has lived in the United States for more than three decades, has no U.S. criminal record, has type 2 diabetes, and lost more than 30 pounds in detention. He cannot be removed until appeals run their course.
Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi sided with the government on removability. AP News reported the judge found Sarsour removable on foreign policy grounds based on a State Department memo, while rejecting claims he lied on his green card application.
Just The News reported the same split outcome: national-security and foreign-policy grounds upheld, the green-card fraud theory discarded. The outlet also reported Sarsour was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after confessing to throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones at Israeli military personnel, and convicted in 1995 of attempting to possess weapons.
Government lawyers in the Fox News account cited decades-old Israeli convictions for throwing rocks at Israeli military personnel and attempting to procure weapons. They also claimed a conviction for throwing a Molotov cocktail at IDF personnel. Sarsour’s lawyer, Patrick Taurel, said he was accused on that point but never convicted.
Sarsour denies the underlying crimes. His attorneys say the Israeli cases involved coerced confessions under torture and that U.S. officials long knew of the record. He has argued deportation to the West Bank would put his life at risk.
A 2001 FBI memorandum, summarized in coverage, relayed allegations from Sarsour’s brother, Jamil, that Salah had been involved in fundraising for the Holy Land Foundation on behalf of Hamas. Federal authorities later shuttered the Holy Land Foundation over terror ties. The public file described in reporting does not settle the full evidentiary weight of those allegations in the present case.
Jewish Insider reporting, as relayed in the Fox News account, said Sarsour wrote a Facebook post asking God to “give Gaza people victory,” and that he acknowledged in a deposition that additional language could be translated as asking God to punish those who wished harm on Gaza. Sarsour has cast the government’s case as political payback for Israel-Gaza advocacy and a threat to free speech.
Taurel rejected the idea that his client endangers the public. He told Fox News Digital:
"If a lawful resident of the United States for over 30 years with zero arrests or convictions in this country, a family man and the father of 6 U.S. citizen kids, the elected president of his mosque, and an advocate for interfaith dialogue is a ‘public safety threat,’ as DHS claims, those words cease to have any meaning at all,"
After the immigration judge’s ruling, Sarsour struck a defiant note. He said:
"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,"
In other remarks tied to the decision, he called the outcome deeply disappointing, said deportation to the West Bank “means the end of my life,” and added that he will not stop standing up for what he called justice in Palestine. Those lines do not erase the record the government put before the court. They do show he intends to keep using every remaining procedural lane.
Salinardi’s decision is a clear win for DHS, ICE, and Rubio’s State Department finding. It is not the final word. Sarsour remains a lawful permanent resident while he appeals. The earlier federal-court release order already showed judges will police retaliation claims even when national-security arguments are in play.
What the immigration court did settle, for now, is the core removability question on foreign-policy and security grounds. The rejected green-card fraud claim matters too. It narrows the government’s theory to the harder national-security track rather than a paperwork case.
For readers outside Wisconsin, the stakes are plain. The Islamic Society of Milwaukee is described as the state’s largest mosque. Its president now sits at the center of a deportation case that mixes old overseas convictions, a Cold War-era immigration authority, modern Gaza advocacy, and a Trump administration that says terror ties and foreign-policy risk are enough.
Lawful status in America is not a shield against a proven security case. It is a promise that the evidence gets tested, the statutes get followed, and the appeal rights get used, not that every contested resident gets to stay.
