Judge Frees Mosque Leader Tied to Hamas Claims
“Federal officials argued that he poses a foreign policy concern. DHS also alleges that he obtained his green card after providing false information.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) blasted a federal court order requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release Salah Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, while his removal case proceeds.
Sarsour, a Palestinian lawful permanent resident who has lived in the United States for more than three decades, was arrested by ICE in March. Federal officials argued that he poses a foreign policy concern. DHS also alleges that he obtained his green card after providing false information during the immigration process.
DHS responded sharply after U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, a Trump appointee to the Southern District of Indiana, ordered Sarsour released from custody.
Homeland Security posted on X:
Thanks to this court order, this public safety threat is now loose on our streets.
There is NO First Amendment right to lie on immigration forms. Any accusation of discrimination by ICE agents is FALSE.
Salah Sarsour is suspected of funding terrorist organizations and was… https://t.co/97lmDKEinj
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 20, 2026
“Thanks to this court order, this public safety threat is now loose on our streets.
There is NO First Amendment right to lie on immigration forms. Any accusation of discrimination by ICE agents is FALSE.
Salah Sarsour is suspected of funding terrorist organizations and was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces. This illegal alien also LIED on his green card application to fraudulently gain legal status in the U.S. under the Clinton Administration.”
Hanlon’s order came after Sarsour argued that the government detained him in retaliation for his speech in support of Palestinians. The judge found that Sarsour had raised a “substantial” First Amendment claim and that the government had not sufficiently rebutted the allegation that the detention was tied to protected advocacy.
“The mere invocation of foreign relations concerns does not automatically trump First Amendment rights,” Hanlon wrote.
The court also rejected the government’s argument that lawful permanent residents have fewer First Amendment protections than U.S. citizens. Hanlon wrote that people lawfully residing in the United States are entitled to constitutional protections.
DHS points to Sarsour’s record overseas. According to DHS and media reports, Sarsour was convicted by an Israeli military court in 1989 for throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones at Israeli forces. He was later convicted in 1995 of attempting to possess weapons and ammunition. DHS also has accused him of helping raise money for Hamas in the 1990s.
Sarsour has denied committing the Israeli offenses, and his attorneys have argued that he has no criminal record in the United States. Fox News noted that Israeli military courts have faced criticism over due process concerns and high conviction rates of Palestinians, while Israel has disputed those criticisms.
A key point in Hanlon’s ruling was timing. The judge wrote that federal officials had known about Sarsour’s prior convictions for approximately 25 years and had considered them multiple times before this year’s detention. According to the court, the government reviewed those records in 2000, 2008, 2010, and 2019 while evaluating Sarsour’s immigration status and eligibility for naturalization.
Sarsour was released shortly after the ruling. In a statement, he said:
“I am so relieved to be with my family. For 80 days, I haven’t been able to step outside and breathe fresh air.
This experience is a reminder to all of us that we must fight together for our right to be a voice for the silenced. I will never stop speaking for Palestine and humanity, wherever I am.”
The removal proceedings remain ongoing, and DHS has indicated it will continue pursuing the case despite the release order.
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Comments
The Judiciary is a political fight, nothing to do with laws, all on politics.
Execute the treasonous black robe.
people lawfully residing in the United States
Well now, that seems to be one of the points in contention, doesn’t it?
Well, no, now you’re being circular. Even if it were the case that people here illegally are not protected — which is not so — you can’t use his speech to make him here illegally and then punish him for that speech!
Got to be taken out
Mossad, please pick up the red phone.
Dinner and a movie?!?
What will it take to remove these cult practitioners? These judges are responsible for the deaths of innocents. They’re not TDS issues, they are life, injury and basic moral issues.
How so? Who will die because this guy is out on bail while his case proceeds? After 30+ years of living here peacefully why would he start killing people now?
Why wouldn’t he???
No, the onus is on you to give a reason why he would. It makes no sense.
Time to start ignoring these robed retards. We’ll “respect the law” when they do.
I think it is clear that a major part of the judiciary is invested in legal chaos, death and destruction of the USA, and the self-immolation of all Christians and Whites. Imagining a world where they somehow are going to not only survive, but to “prosper”.
It is a recurring fantasy among all liberals that on some strange stage, some public place, they are cheered for their stance against normality and law. Hence their need to film themselves in cars, restrooms, bars and restaurants, parks and playgrounds and publish the same on social media with emotional diatribes on their self-righteousness and allegiance to liberalism.
These judges do the same by their ridiculous legal utterances.
What on earth are you talking about? This is just word salad.
He said it in the first sentence: legal chaos, death and destruction of the USA, etc.
What part don’t you get? That judges want to be cheered for their stance against normality and law, I guess.
None of what he wrote made any sense at all. It wasn’t even wrong, it was just word salad, worse than anything Kamala Harris could have come up with.
It’s rare that someone who lacks the ability to comprehend the written word, from stated content to nuance lets everyone see that in action.
Tell us, are you actually literate or does someone read these pieces in a simplified format to you?
In what way is he a threat to public safety? He’s been living in the USA for over 30 years without, as far as anyone knows, having committed any violent crime. So what makes the government think that now, when he’s under scrutiny, he’ll suddenly decide to break that streak?
Of course not. And no one has suggested there is. This is completely irrelevant, and a deliberate red herring, to obscure the very real first amendment issue here.
There is no first amendment right to lie on official forms. But there is a first amendment right to advocate odious and unpopular political positions, and it is unconstitutional for the government to take any action against someone for doing so — even actions that it would otherwise have been entitled to take.
The government says it’s taking action against him because of his lies on the forms. But if it has known about those lies for over 25 years, why has it only taken this action now? What has changed? He plausibly claims that the reason this action is being taken against him is not because of his lies 30+ years ago, but because of his political activism since then. The Trump administration has taken a hard line against people advocating the genocide of Jews, and is looking for reasons to take action against prominent antisemites, and that’s why it has now suddenly decided to act on these old lies he told. If that really is the motive, then he’s correct that the action is unconstitutional. The judge thinks this is plausible enough that it deserves a hearing.
Is it? It is really the case that the ICE action was not motivated by his protected speech? Then why now?
And quite properly so. We should all be condemning the government for having made such a dangerous and frivolous argument.
Not only those lawfully residing here. Anyone who is here, even unlawfully, has the same protections. So does any US citizen or permanent resident for what he says abroad. The only speech not protected is that made by someone who is neither a US citizen nor resident, and who is not in the USA at the time he says it.
The case continues, but on these facts it’s reasonable that he should not be held in custody. It’s not as if he can escape. if he leaves the country, well, that’s what we want, isn’t it?
If somebody has ‘gotten away’ with a crime for decades then suddenly chooses to draw attention to themselves via controversial statements and pop back up on the radar of Gov’t for closer scrutiny that’s tough cookies. Don’t draw the ‘eye of Sauron’ seems like common sense.
Seems especially so for crimes that have a heavy political context like immigration policy and especially the political decisions about priorities. One Admin may have a different set of priorities for enforcement/removal operations than the next, which may be different than another subsequent Admin b/c the political climate and voters changing priorities demand it. Suggesting that every decision to defer prosecution/removal is permanently binding on every subsequent Admin is untenable.
The onus is on the government to prove that its motive is not his controversial statements. Because if it is, then its action against him is unconstitutional. That is clear, settled law.
Not quite. It’s only for protected speech and even then the Govt only has to show a reasonable basis to prosecute on a preponderance of the evidence standard. Not a big hurdle. There’s no requirement to address prosecution ‘motive’ except to provide a reasonable basis independent of the statement.
Again if you commit a crime and ‘get away’ with it for decades then make a controversial statement that brings you onto radar of prosecutors that’s really dumb and you can/should be prosecuted. There’s no 1A ‘get of jail free card’ that immunized crimes separate from/independent of the statement.
This is about protected speech. And the government has to show that it would have taken this action even without the speech.
Here’s the relevant part of the judge’s decision. Read it and see whether you can find any flaws in it:
Note particularly this bit: “Even more, they do not argue that the evidence doesn’t support an inference of retaliatory motive, nor do they cite evidence to overcome the inference.”
Also note that a good chunk of Sarsour’s evidence of an unconstitutional motive for his detention comes directly from Trump’s executive order and from Dhillon’s statement, both of which openly admit that the government plans to act on unconstitutional motives, and thus are own goals. They should both have been more discreet about their intentions.
If one is here illegally, one is here illegally. Period. There is no statute of limitations on being in the country illegally.
No one claims there is a statute of limitations. That’s another dishonest red herring, just like the admin’s claim that there’s someone out there saying there’s a first amendment right to lie on immigration forms.
But it is settled law that the constitution forbids the government from taking any action against someone in retaliation for his constitutionally protected speech. Even if the action would have been perfectly valid for any other motive, merely having that motive makes the action unconstitutional.