MILWAUKEE, WI — The Trump administration scored a major legal victory Tuesday night when an immigration judge ruled that Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, can be deported from the United States on national security grounds.
Judge Jayme Salinardi, brought in from out of state to oversee the case, issued the ruling after a series of hearings, finding Sarsour "removable" under a rarely-used Cold War-era provision of U.S. immigration law that empowers the Secretary of State to seek deportation of non-citizens whose presence could have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked that authority in a June 2025 memo, declaring Sarsour deportable because his actions "undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world," according to his lawyers, who spoke to Al Jazeera.
The Department of Homeland Security has stated that Sarsour was "suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms." He has denied both claims.
DHS also cited Sarsour's decades-old military court convictions in Israel for, it said, "throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed forces and illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition." Sarsour has claimed those accusations stemmed from an arrest as a teenager by Israeli soldiers in 1989 during the first intifada, and that he was forced under torture and threat of rape to sign documents in Hebrew without understanding them, according to The Guardian.
Sarsour, a Palestinian-born U.S. permanent resident who has lived in the country for more than three decades, was detained by ICE officers in Milwaukee in March. A federal judge later released him after finding he had probably been detained in retaliation for his advocacy for Palestinian rights. Undeterred, the administration pressed forward on a separate immigration track, leading to Tuesday's ruling.
"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," Sarsour told The Associated Press. "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."
His attorney, Taurel, told reporters Wednesday that the judge believed his hands were tied by an earlier ruling in the case of Mahmoud Khalil, which found that a letter from the Secretary of State could be enough to make someone deportable on foreign policy grounds. "If the Secretary of State says the person is deportable, it is game over," Taurel said.
Sarsour's lawyers have 60 days to argue that sending him 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 Sarsour cannot be deported while that appeal is pending and will remain in the U.S. for the "foreseeable future."
Judge Salinardi announced he would be retiring shortly after issuing the decision, according to The Guardian.
The ruling marks another win for the Trump administration's aggressive use of the same provision against pro-Palestinian activists, including Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. Critics, including Sarsour's legal team, have criticized what they call the "extreme deference" Salinardi gave to Rubio's memo, arguing it sidesteps meaningful judicial review.
For now, the case remains on appeal, but the decision signals that the administration's strategy of leveraging foreign policy authority to remove individuals it deems national security risks is holding up in court.
Our Take
Here's the bottom line, Patriots: for years, the administrative state told us that deporting foreign nationals with terror ties and criminal convictions was too complicated, too legally risky, or simply impossible. Marco Rubio and the Trump administration just proved them wrong.
This is what America First looks like in practice. The Secretary of State identified a permanent resident whose presence undermines our foreign policy and poses a national security concern, and the machinery of government actually worked to remove him. That is not controversial — that is basic sovereignty. Every nation has the right to decide who stays and who goes, especially when terror funding and decades-old convictions for violent acts against an ally are on the table.
Sarsour's defenders will scream about free speech and claim he is being punished for his advocacy. But let's be clear: this is not about speech. This is about a man the Department of Homeland Security says lied on immigration forms and is suspected of funding terror organizations. If that is true, he never should have been allowed to stay this long.
The Left and their media allies will do everything they can to muddy this ruling, just as they did with Khalil. They will call it Islamophobic, they will call it authoritarian, and they will try to turn Sarsour into a sympathetic figure. Don't fall for it. This is about the rule of law and the safety of the American people.
The fight is not over — Sarsour's lawyers still have appeals to file, and they will drag this out as long as possible. But Tuesday's ruling proves the Trump administration is willing to use every tool at its disposal to secure the border and protect the homeland. That is a victory worth celebrating — and a promise to keep holding them accountable to deliver more.
