The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque was detained by US federal immigration agents, with authorities saying he was suspected of funding terror groups.

Salah Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody by nearly a dozen US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who surrounded his car on Monday in Milwaukee after he left his home, according to the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.

Supporters called Thursday for his immediate release. His attorneys said he was detained on the grounds that he is a foreign policy threat, a claim they argue has no merit.

Instead, they assert Sarsour, 53, was targeted for criticizing Israel and for a conviction as a minor by Israeli military courts in the West Bank, including for throwing rocks at Israeli officers.

“Our government should not be doing the bidding of a foreign government,” attorney Munjed Ahmad charged. “There’s no question in my mind that this is to stifle the discourse on the Palestinian narrative.”

Attorneys said Sarsour, born in the West Bank, has no criminal record in the US, where he has lived for more than 30 years. They said the US government has known about Sarsour’s conviction in Israel since he came to the US in 1993.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of which ICE is a part, confirmed his arrest and accused Sarsour of lying on his immigration forms and alleged that he was “suspected of funding terror organizations.”

Noting his past conviction, DHS said he was previously “convicted for throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces.”

Sarsour’s attorneys have likened the case to that of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student activist who faces deportation because the federal government said he was a foreign policy threat and supports the Hamas terror group.

Sarsour has been the board president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest Islamic organization in the US state, for five years. His attorneys say he holds a green card and lives just outside Milwaukee. His wife and four adult children are US citizens.

At a crowded news conference, boisterous supporters chanted to free Sarsour, recounting his advocacy for those in need. Several recalled Sarsour’s stories about his childhood, including allegations of inhumane treatment while being detained by Israel.

“He was targeted because of one thing, because he dared stand up to the Israeli army,” Othman Atta, one of Sarsour’s attorneys, told the crowd. “And he was not a US citizen.”

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel cited Atta, also the executive director of the mosque, as saying that deportation documents focused on Sarsour’s arrest as a teenager living in the West Bank to argue he provided material support for extremists. Atta denied that Sarsour supported Hamas.

A diverse group of religious leaders in attendance called Sarsour a valuable community member.

“This appears to be just the latest example of how this administration seeks to silence opposition and intimidate those who speak and act differently,” said the Rev. Paul D. Erickson, bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Sarsour’s arrest also prompted outcry from elected officials, including Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who called it “an outrage.”

“He is a legal permanent resident. There is no substantive evidence he has done anything wrong,” Johnson said Thursday in a post on X. “This is another example of overreach and harm from the US immigration authorities.”

Sarsour is being held at a county jail in Indiana. His attorneys have filed a petition seeking his release.

“He is ready to fight tooth and nail to make sure that he’s not drug through the mud,” Ahmad said. “He wants to stay in this country.”

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