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A federal immigration court in Chicago held the fourth and final removal hearing on the Trump administration’s attempt to deport Palestinian American human rights activist Salah Sarsour on Monday, September 14. Sarsour himself has argued the case is a major test of the First Amendment under President Donald Trump’s authoritarian crackdown on immigrants and dissent.

One of multiple advocates for Palestine liberation who were doxxed by Zionist groups and targeted by the Trump administration amid mass protests against Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Sarsour has been a lawful permanent resident for 32 years and lives with his family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. More than a dozen federal agents arrested Sarsour as he left his home on March 30. The case continues to make headlines in Wisconsin, where Sarsour is the president of the state’s largest mosque.

“In a brazen assault on the First Amendment and an affront to the Constitution, I believe I was targeted, arrested and detained by the Trump administration for speaking out against the ongoing atrocities Israel is committing, just as I and so many others believe that Mahmoud Khalil, Sami Hamdi, Yaacub Ira [Vijandre] , Leqaa Kordia and others were before me,” Sarsour wrote in an op-ed for USA Today on July 20.

On September 12, the Council on American-Islamic Relations presented Sarsour with its “Courage Under Fire” award for his “steadfast commitment to Palestinian human rights and his Milwaukee Muslim community, even in the face of detention and intimidation.” The Department of Homeland Security has baselessly smeared Sarsour, who is a board member of American Muslims for Palestine, as a “terrorist,” a flimsy label that Trump’s underlings have repeatedly pinned on protesters and human rights defenders who get in their way.

Sarsour’s arrest came just a few weeks after Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon named American Muslims for Palestine as one of the groups that the Trump administration is working to “dismantle” following their participation in protests against ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Along with Jewish pro-peace groups, American Muslims for Palestine is also listed among the targets of Project Esther, a campaign by the far right Heritage Foundation that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Locked Up by Israel at 15, Palestine Activist Is Now Jailed by ICE

“He has never been charged with, let alone convicted, of a crime in the United States,” Patrick Taurel, Sarsour’s lead immigration attorney, told reporters on Monday. “ICE is seeking to deport him on the basis of his pro-Palestine speech.”

“I believe I was targeted, arrested and detained by the Trump administration for speaking out against the ongoing atrocities Israel is committing.”

“I believe I was targeted, arrested and detained by the Trump administration for speaking out against the ongoing atrocities Israel is committing.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement held Sarsour in an ICE jail in Gary, Indiana, hours away from his family and support network in Milwaukee. Like many others incarcerated in the Trump administration’s byzantine network of formal prisons, warehouse jails, and lethal detention camps for immigrants, Sarsour suffered medical........

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