Overview
- Immigration Judge Jayme Salinardi found on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, that Salah Sarsour is removable on foreign‑policy and national‑security grounds but rejected the government's claim that he lied on his green‑card application.
- The decision relies in part on a June 2025 memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that used Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to label certain pro‑Palestinian advocates as deportable.
- Sarsour was detained by ICE in March and released in June after a federal judge said he raised a substantial free‑speech retaliation claim; the administration has appealed that release and cannot re‑detain him while the federal order remains in place.
- His lawyers plan to appeal the removal ruling and may press Convention Against Torture claims to show he would face a real risk of torture if returned to the West Bank or handed to Israeli custody, and they dispute the reliability of decades‑old Israeli convictions and confessions.
- The case raises broader questions about how U.S. courts treat foreign military‑court records, the rare use of the foreign‑policy removal authority against Palestinian rights advocates, and humanitarian concerns after Sarsour’s reported medical decline while in ICE custody.