A digital billboard shows a photo of Salah Sarsour as protesters gather outside the Mosque Foundation to demand his release on 19 April 2026, in Bridgeview, Illinois, US. [Getty]
Civil rights advocates are ramping up their demands for the release of Milwaukee-based Muslim leader Salah Sarsour from ICE detention.
The 53-year-old president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank who has been living in the US for 32 years, was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month when he was pulled over while driving his car. He was apprehended shortly after Canary Mission, a group that targets pro-Palestinian activists, ran a profile of him.
He is a lawful permanent resident with no criminal record, according to his attorneys. However, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, says, without evidence, that he is suspected of funding terrorists and that he lied on his US residency application.
This week, the Milwaukee Common Council, a local government body, voted in favour of a resolution to condemn Salah’s detention, bringing renewed awareness to a case that could become overshadowed by many other similar arrests across the country under the administration of US President Donald Trump.
Alex Brower, one of the twelve council members who voted for the resolution on 21 April, reportedly called the detention of Sarsour “an absolute abomination.”
Brower added that he found it “unconscionable” that Sarsour would be detained by ICE based on arrests from when he was a teenager in the occupied West Bank.
Sarsour’s detention has led to local demonstrations, with people urging for his release and raising questions over his lack of due process.
Sarsour’s lawyers, who filed a habeas corpus petition, say that his detention was illegal and that it was intended to silence his pro-Palestinian advocacy, violating his constitutional right to free speech.
“The abduction of Mr Sarsour, a beloved leader of Milwaukee’s Muslim community, is utterly unjust and cruel. Once again, the administration is targeting a Palestinian-American for having the courage to be a leader and to stand against injustice. We call for his immediate release and return to his family,” reads a statement issued earlier this month by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, part of a coalition of US Muslim groups urging for the release of Sarsour.
Following his apprehension by ICE last month, Sarsour was reportedly transferred from Wisconsin to Illinois and then taken to an ICE facility in Indiana. His family members have struggled to track his location.
Sarsour’s first deportation hearing is scheduled for 27 April. So far, there have been no indications of where he would be sent, though Trump has increasingly been sending deportees to third countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
