US judge orders release of Palestinian rights advocate detained by ICE

Summary

A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of Salah Sarsour , a Muslim leader who says his detention by immigration authorities was a form of retaliation for his outspoken support of Palestine. Civil liberties groups have depicted those efforts as an attempt to penalise voices critical of Israel and US foreign policy. On March 31, his car was reportedly pulled over by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE (immigration enforcement agency)), and he was transferred to a detention facility in Indiana, pending his removal from the country. Sarsour has no criminal record in the US, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS (Dept. of Homeland Security)) called him a “criminal and a terrorist”. Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought the mass deportation of immigrants from the US. In deportation hearings against such activists, Trump administration officials have relied on a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that allows the secretary of state to “exclude” foreign nationals considered to have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”. Critics have also questioned whether the free speech of activists has actually impeded Trump’s foreign policy. Mahmoud Khalil , a pro-Palestine activist at Columbia University, was among those targeted under the Immigration and Nationality Act. In March 2025, he was arrested and held in detention by immigration authorities before a judge ordered him released in June of that year. His case, however, has continued, and he remains under threat of deportation.