An immigration judge has ruled that the leader of Wisconsin’s largest mosque can be deported, his legal team announced Wednesday.
Salah Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, was arrested by immigration agents on March 30. He was held at the Clay County Jail in Indiana for over 80 days.
In June, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered him to be released while his case proceeds. Hearings in his deportation case began in July before Assistant Chief Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi.
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On Wednesday morning, a statement from Sarsour’s legal team said Salinardi has ruled that Sarsour is “deportable.” Patrick Taurel, the lead immigration attorney for Sarsour, said they will appeal the decision, which was made on Tuesday.
“The evidence presented at trial compels only one conclusion: that Salah is not deportable on any of the grounds alleged by ICE and that Salah should be able to keep his green card,” Taurel wrote in a statement.
Sarsour, in a statement, called the decision “deeply disappointing.”
“While today’s decision is deeply disappointing, I will not give up,” Sarsour wrote. “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.”
Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, is released from immigration detention in Indiana on June 18, 2026. Photo courtesy of Yaseen Najeeb
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has accused Sarsour of lying on his immigration forms in order to obtain his green card. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has called him a “terrorist who was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces.”
But his legal team and supporters say he was detained because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy. During his first deportation hearing in July, his legal team maintained that the federal government has known about his conviction for years and that he was being targeted now due to his pro-Palestinian activism.
During a press conference Wednesday morning, Taurel said Salinardi set a 60 day deadline to file for relief from removal. He said they will most likely file a “deferral of removal under the convention against torture.”
“It’s basically an application, like asylum, where you’re trying to show that it’s more likely than not that you’re going to be tortured if you (are) sent to the country that the government is proposing to send you to,” Taurel said.
Taurel said there will be a trial held regarding that, likely sometime early next year.
“We’re going to appeal the judge’s decision, and we look forward to being vindicated on appeal,” Taurel said.
The judge’s decision comes after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memorandum in 2025 that said Sarsour was deportable under a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
“The immigration judge (Salinardi) gave extreme deference to Secretary of State Rubio’s determination that Salah was deportable under this provision,” Taurel said.
“The judge (Salinardi) said he couldn’t look behind Rubio’s finding and that he was bound by the decisions of higher courts,” he added.
During a quick status conference hearing Wednesday morning, Salinardi said he was retiring and that another immigration judge would set the date for the next hearing in the case.
Sarsour, who grew up in the Israeli occupied West Bank, has been living in the U.S. for more than 30 years. He also serves as a board member for the American Muslims for Palestine.
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