An immigration judge ruled Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, can be deported on national security grounds, a major win for the Trump administration’s enforcement drive.
Federal authorities now have a green light to remove the longtime Milwaukee Islamic leader after a Chicago immigration court found him removable as a security and foreign-policy threat. The decision hands the Trump administration a concrete victory in a high-profile case that has drawn national attention.
Fox News reported that the immigration judge ruled Wednesday that the government can deport Salah Sarsour, also known as Salah Salem Sarsour, on national security grounds. Sarsour leads the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and has lived in the United States for more than three decades. He has pledged to appeal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio set the case in motion in June 2025. He invoked federal immigration law and determined that Sarsour’s presence in the United States could carry potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. DHS later moved to enforce that finding.
In March, ICE agents working with the U.S. Marshals Service conducted a targeted operation in Milwaukee and took Sarsour into custody. DHS described him 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 and later released.
A photo caption placed his release on Thursday, June 18, 2026. Supporting coverage fills in the sequence: Sarsour was detained in late March and freed in mid-June after a federal judge found a substantial free-speech retaliation claim. He then faced the immigration court fight that produced this week’s removability ruling.
Reuters reported that Chicago Immigration Court Judge Jayme Salinardi sustained multiple grounds of removability under the Immigration and Nationality Act while rejecting the government’s claim that Sarsour lied on his green card application. The national security and foreign-policy grounds stood. A DHS statement put it plainly: “The judge sustained multiple grounds of removability.”
Government lawyers argued Sarsour posed a national security threat by pointing to decades-old convictions in Israel. Those included 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 said he was accused of that offense but never convicted.
Just The News reported additional detail on the record: Sarsour was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, imprisoned in 1988 after confessing to throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones, and convicted in 1995 of attempting to possess weapons. He denies the crimes and says the confessions were induced by torture. The immigration judge still found him removable on foreign-policy grounds as a national security threat.
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.” The same spokesperson framed the broader policy: “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.,” adding that “illegal aliens receive due process.”
A 2001 FBI memorandum, summarized in coverage of the case, recorded allegations from Sarsour’s brother, Jamil, that Salah Sarsour had been involved in fundraising for the Holy Land Foundation on behalf of Hamas. The federal government later shuttered that foundation over terror ties. The memo is part of the background the government has put before the public; it is not a fresh U.S. criminal conviction.
Sarsour’s side rejects the national-security framing. They say he is a lawful permanent resident, a family man, and a community leader targeted for advocacy tied to the Israel-Gaza conflict. Court documents cited in the coverage describe him as a lawful permanent resident. His lawyer stresses he has no arrests or convictions in this country.
Patrick Taurel, the lawyer representing Sarsour, 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 judge’s ruling, Sarsour 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 case, he told the Associated Press the decision was “deeply disappointing” and that he intends to appeal. He has also said, “I will not stop standing up for what's right and for justice in Palestine,” and has argued that removal to the West Bank would endanger his life.
Coverage also notes a Facebook post in which Sarsour asked God to “give Gaza people victory,” and a deposition in which he acknowledged that additional language in the post could be translated as asking God to punish those who wished harm on Gaza. Jewish Insider first flagged that post. The government treats the broader pattern, old convictions, terror-support allegations, and foreign-policy risk, as the core of its case. Sarsour treats the case as punishment for speech.
One point cut against the government. The immigration judge rejected the allegation that Sarsour lied on his green card application. That matters for process and credibility fights down the road. It did not save him on removability. The court still found him removable on the foreign-policy and national-security grounds Rubio and DHS pressed.
Sarsour has no U.S. criminal record in the materials presented. Supporting accounts say he has type 2 diabetes and lost more than 30 pounds while detained. Those personal details do not erase the Israeli convictions the government put at the center of its threat case, or Rubio’s formal foreign-policy determination.
The mechanics are now clear. Rubio made the foreign-policy call in 2025. ICE arrested Sarsour in Milwaukee in March. A federal judge later ordered his release on a free-speech retaliation claim. The immigration court has now ruled he can be deported on security and foreign-policy grounds. He will appeal. DHS says the law applies and that people who break it face consequences under President Trump and Secretary Mullin.
National security is not a slogan. When a Secretary of State finds adverse foreign-policy consequences and an immigration judge sustains removability, the country is allowed to act, and the Trump administration just won the ruling that lets it do so.
