Sarsour says he was denied diabetes care and access to Friday prayers
Salah Sarsour, president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, said his more than 80 days in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody were marked by “dehumanizing” treatment that recalled his time in an Israeli military prison.
“It all brought back old memories of things that happened to me when I was tried in Palestine,” Sarsour said in his first interview since his release last month. “The humiliation, the treatment by guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people down.”
Sarsour, 53, a legal permanent resident for nearly three decades, was detained on March 30 when at least 10 unmarked vehicles and armed agents in civilian clothing surrounded him as he was on his way to see his elderly mother. He was taken first to a detention center near Chicago and later to a facility in Indiana. He said he lost more than 30 pounds in custody, was denied daily blood-sugar checks for his diabetes, and slept on a two-inch mattress in a freezing room shared with dozens of men. The food was so poor that “you don’t know what you’re eating sometimes,” he said. Guards also barred him from congregating with other Muslim detainees for Friday prayers and from celebrating Eid.
A federal judge ordered Sarsour’s release on June 18 after finding that immigration officials likely detained him in retaliation for his advocacy of Palestinian rights — a likelihood that the judge said would make the detention unlawful. Secretary of State Marco Rubio personally signed a memo describing Sarsour as deportable because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world.” The Department of Homeland Security has claimed that Sarsour was “suspected of funding terror organizations and lying on immigration forms,” accusations he denies. Sarsour believes the Trump administration intended to intimidate advocates for Palestinian rights. “They thought that by arresting me they would scare people fighting for justice for Palestinians, but it’s the opposite,” he said.
DHS cited Sarsour’s decades-old convictions in Israel for, it said, “throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed forces and illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition.” Sarsour said those charges stemmed from an arrest as a teenager by Israeli soldiers in 1989, during the first intifada, and that he was forced, under torture and threats of rape, to sign documents in Hebrew that he did not understand. He served two years in prison and was detained again for nearly three months in 1995 during a visit to Palestine. An Israeli government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Sarsour, who is a board member of the advocacy group American Muslims for Palestine, is due in immigration court in Chicago on Wednesday for the first substantive hearing in his immigration case. Meanwhile, a challenge to the legality of his detention is moving through the federal courts. Samuel Cole, a former immigration judge and senior attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which represents Sarsour, said the government has fast-tracked the case for political purposes. “They use the immigration court as a tool for their immigration enforcement policies,” Cole said.
Sarsour said his time in detention haunts him and that he does not feel like the same person, but he intends to continue speaking out. “We have a mission: let’s continue to make our voice clear, to protect the first amendment, to support justice,” he said. “I’ll continue with that message whether I’m inside or outside.”