Ten Muslim civil rights groups have issued a joint letter denouncing the arrest of a Palestinian American community leader in Wisconsin, Salah Sarsour.<\/p>\n
The president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a vocal Palestinian advocate, Sarsour was reportedly pulled over by 10 federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while driving on March 30.<\/p>\n
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The joint letter<\/a> explains that Sarsour was transferred to a detention facility in Illinois, then to Indiana, leaving his family \u201cscrambling to determine his whereabouts\u201d.<\/p>\n A lawful permanent resident, he had lived in the US for 32 years, according to the letter, and his wife and children are all US citizens. Sarsour has been in immigration detention ever since his arrest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must be clear that Salah is being targeted on the basis of his Palestinian and Muslim background,\u201d the letter, issued Thursday, said.<\/p>\n It was co-signed by organisations including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Legal Fund of America, and the US Council of Muslim Organizations.<\/p>\n The groups noted that, under President Donald Trump, a number of immigrant activists, scholars and foreign students had been targeted for deportation based on their pro-Palestinian solidarity.<\/p>\n \u201cHis detention reflects a troubling trend we\u2019ve seen with Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa Kordia, Mohsen Mahdawi and other voices critical of Israeli oppression,\u201d the groups wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cThis administration is weaponizing the U.S. justice system to advance the interests of a foreign state, Israel, at a time when it is carrying out a genocide in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n The groups have launched an online campaign for Sarsour\u2019s legal defence. By Thursday afternoon, it had earned over $35,500 in donations.<\/p>\n While the Trump administration has yet to issue a statement about Sarsour\u2019s arrest, it has taken a hardline approach to pro-Palestinian activism.<\/p>\n When running for re-election in 2024, Trump pledged to crack down on protesters denouncing human rights abuses during Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n According to statements obtained by the Washington Post in May 2024, Trump reportedly called<\/a> the protest movement a \u201cradical revolution\u201d and said that, if he were elected, he planned \u201cto set that movement back 25 or 30 years\u201d.<\/p>\n Within months of taking office in January 2025, Trump proceeded to take action.<\/p>\n Starting in March 2025, his administration moved to strip hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds from universities that saw protests unfold on their campuses, citing claims of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n Federal agents also arrested legal permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student leader, stripping him of his green card.<\/p>\n One scholar, Rumeysa Ozturk of Turkiye, saw her student visa revoked for co-signing a pro-Palestinian opinion piece in her school\u2019s student newspaper.<\/p>\n The arrests and subsequent efforts to rapidly deport the activists and scholars have prompted widespread condemnation as a violation of the Constitution\u2019s First Amendment right to free speech and protest.<\/p>\n Officials in Wisconsin have been among the leaders to denounce Sarsour\u2019s arrest as the latest in a series of efforts to stifle free speech. Two local alderpersons, JoCasta Zamarripa and Alex Bower, called the situation a \u201cnightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is an illegal detention of a longtime permanent U.S. resident, as Mr Sarsour is a Milwaukeean who is lawfully present in our community,\u201d they wrote<\/a> in a joint statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe unacceptable activities by ICE \u2014 and especially illegally detaining citizens without due process \u2014 must stop immediately. How dare federal ICE agents come into our community and unlawfully detain a grandfather, a faith leader, a Wisconsinite!\u201d<\/p>\n State Senator Chris Larson, meanwhile, underscored that the federal government has yet to offer any reasons publicly for Sarsour\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n