US efforts to deport Palestinian mosque leader rely on coerced confessions, witness testifies

Israeli authorities allegedly coerced Salah Sarsour, the president of Wisconsin's largest mosque, into confessing to crimes during his time in Israeli custody, according to testimony by his former attorney, Jawad Boulos, in a Chicago immigration court. Sarsour, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in March at his Milwaukee home.

He was released from ICE detention in June, with the Department of Homeland Security seeking his deportation on the grounds that he poses a foreign policy threat. The Israeli convictions from the 1980s and '90s form the basis of this argument. However, Boulos testified that Sarsour was tortured and forced to make confessions under Israeli custody, and that he was only convicted of attempting to possess a weapon, not of any charge linking him to a terrorist organization.