WMCA Condemns the Detention of Community Leader Salah Sarsour and Demands Immediate Release
The Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance condemns in the strongest possible terms the abduction of Salah Sarsour a lawful permanent resident, beloved community leader, grandfather, and president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee by ICE agents on March 30, 2026.
This was not an arrest. This was an abduction. More than ten federal vehicles surrounded Mr. Sarsour as he left his own home, and within hours he had been transferred across state lines — first to Illinois, then to Indiana while his family scrambled to even learn where he was being held. This is not law enforcement. This is a political kidnapping designed to terrorize Muslim and Palestinian communities into silence.
Salah Sarsour has lived in this country for over 32 years. His wife and children are American citizens. He has no criminal record in the United States. The government's own charges reach back to acts allegedly committed as a minor, as a teenager living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank acts that the U.S. government was fully aware of when it granted him legal status in 1993. To weaponize them now 33 years later is not law enforcement. It is retaliation.
We are calling out what this is: anti-Muslim hate and anti-Palestinian targeting disguised as immigration enforcement. The Trump administration is using the machinery of the state to silence advocates, intimidate communities, and advance the interests of a foreign government that is currently being investigated for war crimes.
We ask our elected officials, a direct question: Is your protection of a foreign apartheid state more important than protecting the constitutional rights of the residents of your own community? Where is your voice? Due process is not a privilege reserved for some. It applies to Arab Christians. It applies to Muslims. It applies to Palestinians. It applies to Salah Sarsour.
This administration has already come for Mahmoud Khalil. For Leqaa Kordia. For Mohsen Mahdawi. Now they have come for Salah Sarsour. The pattern is unmistakable. The silence of too many elected officials is complicity.
WMCA demands:
The immediate release of Salah Sarsour
That all elected officials representing Muslim and Palestinian communities in Wisconsin publicly condemn this detention
That federal courts uphold the First Amendment and due process rights of all residents
That Congress investigate the use of immigration enforcement as a tool of political repression
We will not be silent. We will not be intimidated. And we are watching who stands with us and who does not.
