Muslim leader speaks out after more than 80 days in ICE detention: ‘It brought back memories from Palestine’

Salah Sarsour speaks after being released from immigration detention in Indiana on 18 June 2026. Photograph: Yaseen Najeeb View image in fullscreen Salah Sarsour speaks after being released from immigration detention in Indiana on 18 June 2026. Photograph: Yaseen Najeeb Interview Muslim leader speaks out after more than 80 days in ICE detention: ‘It brought back memories from Palestine’ Alice Speri Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, said ‘dehumanizing’ treatment reminded him of time spent in Israeli military jail T he president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque said he was subjected to “dehumanizing” treatment during more than 80 days in federal immigration custody – treatment that reminded him of the time he spent in Israeli military prisons in occupied Palestine nearly four decades ago. “It all brought back old memories of things that happened to me when I was tried in Palestine,” said Salah Sarsour in his first interview since being released last month. “The humiliation, the treatment by guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people down.” He said he lost more than 30lb while in immigration detention. Sarsour, who was born in the West Bank and has been a US permanent resident for nearly three decades, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March and released after a federal judge found he had probably been detained in retaliation of his advocacy for Palestinian rights – a likelihood the judge said would render his detention unlawful. The Trump administration is continuing to seek his deportation and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, personally signed off on a memo last year describing Sarsour as deportable, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. Sarsour believes his detention was a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate people out of denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza. “They thought that by arresting me they would scare people fighting for justice for Palestinians, but it’s the opposite,” he said. Sarsour, 53, is the owner of several businesses, the father of six US citizens and grandfather of nine – with a tenth grandchild on the way. He is also a prominent community leader in Milwaukee, where he has lived since moving to the US in 1993 with his wife to build a family in a place where he could “live freely”, he said. On 30 March, he was on his way to see his elderly mother when he was surrounded, he said, by at least 10 unmarked vehicles and armed agents in civilian clothing and whisked away, first to a detention center near Chicago and later miles away at a facility in Indiana. His detention drew condemnation from scores of civil rights groups, community members and legislators as well as protests outside the detention center . The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment but has claimed that Sarsour was “suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms