USA · updated 47m ago · 3 min read
Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi Rules Salah Sarsour Can Be Deported From U.S.
Immigration judge ruled Salah Sarsour can be deported on national security grounds. Ruling cites foreign policy threat; rejected government claim he lied on green card.
Whether the ruling depends on Rubio’s memo.
7 of 9 outlets skipped it: jordan listed as a possible destination despite no connection.
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Al Jazeera
“Salinardi ruled on Wednesday that Palestinian-born Salah Sarsour can be removed from the US based in part on a memo”Read the original ↗
CBS News
“The U.S. can deport the Palestinian-born leader of Wisconsin's largest mosque on the grounds that he is a foreign policy threat”Read the original ↗
Al Jazeera frames the ruling as based in part on Rubio’s memo, while CBS frames it as the judge finding a foreign-policy threat.
Deportation Ordered
Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi ruled Wednesday that Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, can be deported from the United States on foreign policy grounds while the judge rejected allegations that he lied on his green card application.
Sarsour, who was detained in Milwaukee in March by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, said in a statement that the ruling was "deeply disappointing" and that he intends to appeal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo in June 2025 that invoked a rarely-used immigration provision, and the ruling relied in part on that memo, according to his lawyers.
Patrick Taurel told reporters on Wednesday that the case compels only one conclusion, saying, "Salah is not deportable," and he added that Sarsour should be given back his green card with an apology.
Sarsour’s lawyers said the ruling does not mean he will be immediately deported, and they said they have 60 days to argue that sending him back would put him at risk of torture under the Convention Against Torture.
Competing Arguments
The government argued that Sarsour’s decades-old terrorism convictions in Israel make him a threat to national security in the United States and accused him of lying on his green card application, while Salinardi agreed with the foreign policy threat finding. Sarsour told The Associated Press in a Tuesday interview that deportation to the West Bank "means the end of my life," and his attorneys said he fears for his life if he is sent back. Patrick Taurel told reporters Wednesday that the judge gave what he called "extreme deference" to Rubio’s memo and that Salinardi believed his hands were tied by an earlier ruling in Khalil’s case.
Taurel also said, "If the Secretary of State says the person is deportable, it is game over," describing how the court treated the Secretary of State’s letter. Sarsour’s defense said the confessions underlying his Israeli convictions were forced through torture and coercion, and Jawad Boulos testified in August that Sarsour was coerced into confessing and was not convicted of any charge tying him to a terrorist organization.
What Happens Next
Sarsour’s lawyers said they will argue that sending him back would put him at risk of torture, and they said that protection from deportation under the Convention Against Torture could apply. Taurel said he can’t be deported while an appeal is pending and that Sarsour will remain in the United States for the "foreseeable future," while the case continues. The ruling came as Sarsour was separately fighting the Trump administration in federal court over his detention while his deportation case is ongoing, after a federal judge ordered his release from ICE custody in June after 81 days.
James Patrick Hanlon ordered Sarsour released in June, questioning why decades-old convictions that U.S. authorities had long known about suddenly justified detaining him, and Hanlon found a "substantial" claim of retaliation for speaking out about Palestinian rights. The case also raised questions about where Sarsour could be sent, because Jordan appears as a possible destination on the removal order even though Taurel said Sarsour has no right to reside in Jordan, and Salinardi refused to address it and said it was preserved on appeal.