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Nearly a dozen agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded Muslim community leader Salah Sarsour on March 30 after he left his home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and serving as president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the city’s largest mosque and Muslim institution, Sarsour is a husband, father, and grandfather described as a pillar of his community and a “loving bear” who is “always smiling.”

ICE’s parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), claimed without evidence that Sarsour is a “terrorist” who “lied” on a green card application when he moved to the U.S. in the 1990s. However, Sarsour’s attorney says that federal documents show he was jailed because Secretary of State Marco Rubio considered him a threat to U.S. foreign policy in June 2025, which was also reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Sarsour’s arrest came shortly after he was profiled by the shady pro-Israel website Canary Mission known for doxxing and smearing the reputations of Palestinian rights activists on college campuses. Their targets included Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was abducted and jailed by ICE for more than three months in 2025.

Federal immigration agents transported Sarsour hundreds of miles away from his family to a county jail in Indiana that contracts with ICE, where Sarsour remains incarcerated today as attorneys petition for his release. On April 6, a few days after his arrest, Sarsour released a letter to his community, urging fellow Muslims and civil rights activists in Milwaukee to continue “standing on just causes without hesitation.”

Citing lessons learned while he was jailed by the Israeli military as a teenager living in the West Bank, Sarsour’s letter frames the latest “unjust confinement” as a test of faith. Sarsour references the story of the prophet Yusuf — or Joseph in Christian and Hebrew texts — who was imprisoned in Egypt on false charges but maintained his faith in God and justice.

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“The prophets never stood with injustice, with oppressors and with other evildoers; rather, they taught us to stand with the mathloomeen (the oppressed) and defend them,” Sarsour wrote. “This is why our community has always put forth tremendous efforts to help others, including standing with the people of Gaza, Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Kashmir, Burma, Lebanon, and beyond.”

The letter is reminiscent of the one issued by Martin Luther King Jr. after he was jailed for violating an anti-protest injunction in Birmingham, Alabama. On scraps of paper, King penned a letter from his jail cell to his followers, criticizing “white moderates” who said that civil rights protests were disruptive and untimely. Touting the moral power of nonviolent civil disobedience, King famously declared that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Sarsour’s colleagues and supporters say he was targeted and locked up over his free speech about Palestinian rights and against Israel’s genocidal wars. On April 20, a coalition of Muslim civil rights groups gathered on Capitol Hill to demand Sarsour’s release. Osama Abu Irshaid, executive director of American Muslims for Palestine, warned that the Trump administration’s targeting of pro-Palestine voices as “threats to foreign........

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