Ex-Attorney Testifies Israeli Confessions Behind Sarsour Deportation Case Were Coerced

A former Israeli defense attorney told a Chicago immigration court on Tuesday that Salah Sarsour, the longtime leader of Wisconsin's largest mosque, was tortured into confessing to crimes decades ago, and that Israeli prosecutors never proved he belonged to a terrorist organization.

Jawad Boulos, who represented Sarsour when Israel charged him in the 1980s and '90s, testified according to the Associated Press that his former client was coerced under torture and eventually took a plea deal on a charge of attempting to possess a weapon. Boulos said Sarsour was never convicted of any charge linking him to a terrorist group.

Sarsour is a legal permanent resident of the United States. ICE agents arrested him at his Milwaukee home in late March. A judge released him from detention in June, ruling that the government had not adequately explained why it was moving to deport him now, after he had lived in the U.S. for decades without incident.

The government's case rests on decades-old Israeli convictions

The Department of Homeland Security argues Sarsour is a foreign policy threat and should be deported based on those Israeli convictions from the 1980s and '90s. Sarsour has no criminal record in the United States. He says he's being targeted for speaking out against Israel.

DHS isn't citing anything he's done in America. It's relying entirely on a foreign legal process that his lawyers say was built on torture-extracted confessions.

Human rights organizations have documented patterns of alleged mistreatment and coerced confessions of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody, according to the Associated Press. If a conviction rests on a confession obtained through torture, using that conviction as the sole basis to strip a legal U.S. resident of his status decades later deserves real scrutiny, no matter who's doing the deporting.

The other side of the ledger

The U.S. government has broad authority to exclude or remove noncitizens it deems threats to foreign policy or national security, and courts have historically given the executive branch significant deference on those calls. DHS isn't required to relitigate a foreign court's verdict to use it as evidence. If Sarsour was in fact convicted of attempting to possess a weapon, as Boulos testified, that's a fact on the record, even if the surrounding process was coercive.

But so far in this case, that's the only conviction on the table, according to the AP's reporting on Boulos's testimony, not a terrorism conviction. And a federal immigration judge already found DHS hadn't laid out an adequate justification for expelling Sarsour after decades of lawful residence, which is why he's not sitting in detention right now.

What's actually been proven versus alleged

Sarsour was convicted in Israel of attempting to possess a weapon. He served time and later lived in the U.S. for years as a legal permanent resident, running Wisconsin's largest mosque without any American criminal record. His former attorney testified that his confession was coerced through torture, and Sarsour claims that DHS's real motivation is his public criticism of Israel.

No criminal charges have been filed against Sarsour in the United States. This is a civil immigration proceeding, not a criminal trial, which means the evidentiary standards and protections are different, and it's part of why cases like this are so hard to adjudicate cleanly. The system allows the government to lean on foreign convictions that a U.S. court never independently reviewed for coercion, which is exactly what Sarsour's legal team is now trying to force a judge to scrutinize.

Part of a broader pattern

Sarsour is one of several people arrested and threatened with deportation in the U.S. after publicly criticizing Israel or supporting Palestinians since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023, according to the Associated Press. Whether that pattern reflects legitimate national security screening or targeted retaliation for speech is precisely the question these immigration court proceedings are supposed to answer, case by case.

On July 22, Sarsour's brother Mohammad testified that Sarsour looked gaunt and dirty and complained of pain from his time in Israeli detention, according to the AP's reporting. That testimony, paired with Boulos's account this week, forms the core of the defense's argument that the foundation of DHS's case doesn't hold up.

Sarsour's next hearing is scheduled for September 14, where he'll appear remotely. His attorney, Patrick Taurel, said Sarsour himself will not testify. Whether the immigration judge finds the decades-old Israeli confession credible enough to support deportation, or whether it gets thrown out as the product of coercion, will determine whether a man who has lived legally in the U.S. for decades stays or goes.