![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Copy-of-555144403_10163587002776941_1602580456204401593_n.jpg\")
Marouf (left) (Courtesy\/Noor Wadi, Justice For Marwan campaign)<\/p>\nWhen I saw Marwan Marouf\u2019s face plastered on my Instagram feed, under bright red letters announcing he\u2019d been arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the first thing I remembered was his distinctive, gentle voice.<\/p>\n
For nearly three decades, Brother Marwan, as we know him, has been a constant presence in our community. Long before the Dallas area attracted thousands of Muslims and high-profile religious leaders, we grew up in small congregations, and people like Marouf led prayers and delivered short sermons to a few-dozen families now and then. He\u2019d arrived in the city in the \u201990s as a student, and he later worked as an engineer at the same company as my dad and some of my friends\u2019 parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Once, in high school, during late evening Ramadan prayers, I fell asleep while he was giving a lecture, lulled into a sense of peaceful drowsiness. In the women\u2019s section of the mosque, there was a running joke that the mics weren\u2019t strong enough to amplify Marouf\u2019s soft-spoken delivery. I remember being annoyed that I had missed most of his sermon, as he\u2019d been coming around to our masjid less frequently, since there were dozens of them now to rotate between. His sermons were almost always uplifting reminders about how to live more compassionately and generously at a time when it felt like both these forces were dwindling in our society.<\/p>\n
Marouf, who is Palestinian, had been seeking permanent legal status since 2012 after receiving student and work visas, according to his lawyers in a press release, but he was first denied a green card in 2020. On September 22, ICE informed him he was denied again, his lawyers say, based on a decades-old claim that Marouf\u2014through his support for the Palestinian-led charity the Holy Land Foundation\u2014had supported terrorist activities. ICE arrested him that day, and he\u2019s since been detained at the notorious Bluebonnet detention facility some 200 miles away from home. The Muslim Legal Fund for America (MLFA), which is handling his case, declined to comment for this story as he awaits a bond hearing, but the group has said that Marouf\u2019s arrest and detention are \u201ca direct affront to the due process protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marouf (left) (Courtesy\/Noor Wadi, Justice For Marwan campaign)<\/p>\n
In North Texas, where I grew up, Marouf is best known in the community for his work with the Muslim American Society of Dallas, supporting youth programming. He sponsored a Boy Scouts troop, led volunteer initiatives, and worked with programs for refugees as well. During the pandemic, he drove around Dallas and its sprawling suburbs delivering meals and supplies to people who needed extra help. Last year, he was recognized <\/a>by the City of Richardson, one of the inner-ring suburbs, for his community service.\u00a0<\/p>\n On social media, the Muslim American Society quickly started collecting stories in his support, with the hashtag #BecauseOfMarwan. Many people affectionately called him Amo, the Arabic word for uncle, recalling his humble nature and the small ways he would make people smile\u2014never getting mad at kids running amok at the center; making volunteers feel proud of the tasks they were assigned; and constantly working in the background to make everything run smoothly. He never sought the spotlight, but everyone who\u2019s been in town long enough knows the name Marwan Marouf.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I moved to Dallas with my family, Amo Marwan and his family really helped us feel like we\u2019d lived here our whole lives,\u201d said Noor Wadi, a community organizer who\u2019s been supporting public outreach efforts for his case. \u201cWhen \u2026 we\u2019re at civic events, it feels empty without Amo Marwan. But we have hope that he will come back home. We\u2019re going to apply pressure from every single angle.\u201d<\/p>\n The Holy Land Foundation case, which the government tenuously tied Marouf to, was a major milestone in the U.S. government\u2019s targeting of Muslims and Palestinians. The W. Bush administration designated the foundation a terrorist organization in 2001, saying that it had secretly sent funds to Hamas. The charity, which had provided food and medical aid and supported other aid programs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, was at that point the largest Muslim-led charity in the United States. It distributed funds to reputable organizations in Palestine that also received funds from the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the European Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n In what many observers<\/a>, including the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, consider a sham trial<\/a>, the five leaders of the charity were convicted and sent to prison. Their sentences ranged from 15 to 65 years. The convictions relied on testimony from anonymous witnesses <\/a>from the Israeli military and evidence gathered from government wiretaps of the charity\u2019s leaders. Former Treasury Department officials later admitted that Muslim-run charities were an \u201ceasy, soft target\u201d in the early years of the War on Terror.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Marouf\u2019s legal team, he was transparent about his time volunteering with the foundation, when they had fundraisers locally, when immigration officials questioned him about it during his green card application process. And his donations and volunteer work pre-dated the Bush administration\u2019s questionable terror designation anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis volunteer work included ordering pizza and hiring a clown to entertain children while their parents attended [foundation] fundraising events,\u201d MLFA said. \u201cMarwan\u2019s donations included sponsorship of an orphan in Palestine. And yet, some thirty years later, the government still chooses to wrongfully penalize Marwan for these ordinary acts of charity\u2014acts which he considers obligatory to his faith.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Wadi said that the case could raise fears among the community about being targeted for similar donations or civic engagement. The accusations made 20 years ago against the Holy Land Foundation, and other Islamic charities, are similar to the accusations that Israel has recently leveled against the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, for example. In 2024, the Biden administration froze funding<\/a> to the humanitarian organization after Israel accused some of its staff of participating in terrorist acts.\u00a0<\/p>\n What\u2019s different now, Wadi said, is that the general public isn\u2019t blindly accepting such claims about Muslims in their communities, especially after watching what a United Nations commission<\/a> and a growing number of scholars<\/a> have declared a genocide in Gaza, along with the blatant targeting of Palestinian student activists like Mahmoud Khalil<\/a>. \u201cPeople from all walks of life are saying, \u2018That\u2019s enough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Imam Omar Suleiman, a well-known Dallas preacher, said that Marouf\u2019s arrest was particularly shocking as the Trump administration has targeted Palestinians involved in demonstrations. \u201cHis arrest makes it apparent that the administration is now interested in targeting any Palestinian immigrant, whether they voice their opinions or simply serve quietly within their communities,\u201d Suleiman said in an email.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far in Dallas, the community has turned out for Marouf. At a packed community gathering the day after his arrest, Suleiman told the gathered crowd not to despair. \u201cThis is not a funeral, this is not us bidding farewell to someone,\u201d he said. \u201cThe heart of our community, the pillar of our community, has been taken away from us, and we can\u2019t rest, nor can we accept that this is the way this is going to go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Membership-Banner-Aug-2024-Evergreen.png\")
<\/a>Advertisement<\/p>\n