You
Here to discuss the case is a member of Sarsour's legal team.
Sam Cole, an attorney with the ACLU of Illinois, who is also a former immigration judge.
Sam, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
You're familiar with the arguments raised by the Trump administration against Sarsour.
The Secretary of State himself said that he posed an adverse consequence to foreign policy considerations.
Were there grounds to arrest and detain him?
No, absolutely not.
Mr. Sarsour has been an upstanding person in the United States since he came here over 30 years ago.
He is a grandfather of nine U.S. citizen kids and has had absolutely no trouble in the United States.
The only reason he was arrested was because he's an outspoken advocate for Palestinian human rights.
And that's why he's been targeted by this administration.
And that is absolutely not an appropriate and lawful reason to arrest someone.
So what were conditions like for Mr. Sarsour in jail?
They were pretty bad.
He lost 30 pounds during the time that he was there.
He also has a medical problem.
He's a type 2 diabetic and his doctor required that he have daily glucose, blood glucose monitoring.
And he was getting tested once a month.
So that's not great.
And that can really pose some serious risks to his health.
Was there a chance he could have been deported?
So the case is ongoing, right?
So he has been released from detention based on our motion in front of a federal district court judge.
So Mr. Sarsour filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus asking the federal judge to release him from the immigration detention.
And the judge hasn't ruled on that habeas petition quite yet.
But he did grant an interim release of Mr. Sarsour while the court adjudicates the habeas petition by saying that he's made a strong showing that he might prevail in the habeas petition.
But that doesn't mean immigration cases over.
So Mr. Sarsour is still fighting deportation in immigration court.
And that's ongoing.
Okay.
You're a former immigration judge yourself.
You've said this case is highly unusual.
You've never seen anything like it.
How much of the case is outside the bounds of what you'd normally see?
I was an immigration judge in the Chicago immigration court for nine years.
And I handled actually a detained docket.
That's a docket of individuals who are in immigration custody.
So very similar to the situation that Mr. Sarsour was in.
And Mr. Sarsour's case is in fact in the Chicago immigration court.
And I can tell you for one, I have never seen anything like this at all.
First of all, the primary charge against them is, as you noted, that letter from Secretary
of State Marco Rubio saying that Mr. Sarsour's really lawful activity in the United States
poses a foreign policy risk to the United States.
Now that is highly unusual and highly legally dubious.
But the other thing that is extraordinary about this case is although the case is assigned
to the Chicago immigration court, the judge that was assigned to hear the case is not
a Chicago immigration court judge.
It's actually a very senior level management judge in the executive office for immigration
review.
It's an acting regional deputy chief immigration judge.
It's essentially the second in command of all the judges in the entire immigration court
system.
So that case was plucked out of the immigration court judges and specifically assigned to
this one management judge.
I've never seen that happen.
So I gather you feel like you have a strong First Amendment case here that his rights,
your client's rights were violated.
Can you explain that?
Absolutely.
Mr. Sarsour, as a longtime permanent resident of the United States, has the same First Amendment
rights to speak and to engage in political activity and political activism that essentially
you and I do as citizens of the United States.
And so what's really happening is the government is targeting him because they don't like his
speech.
And that is highly problematic.
It violates the Constitution, the First Amendment, and we're very concerned to see
these charges against him by the administration.
So you mentioned this, that this case is not over.
You have hearings coming up.
How does this proceed?
What happens next?
So there's another hearing coming up at the end of July, July 22nd, in the immigration
court, where the government has the burden of proof in this case.
They have to prove the charges that they have made against him.
And aside from the charges based on the Marco Rubio determination about foreign policy,
there are some other charges that relate to things that have been decades and decades ago.
Things the government has known about for a very long time.
And we will fight these charges.
We are, he has very good defenses and we are fighting them in immigration court.
And if we lose immigration court, we will continue our fight all the way up as far as it takes.
Because everyone knows what's going on here.
It's not about anything that happened decades ago.
It's about what he's doing now, his speech.
And that's why he's being, that's why he's being targeted.
All right.
We'll be watching the case.
Sam Cole, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you.
Yes.
It's not surprising to me that this case has gotten international attention because it is just part of a pattern by the Trump administration.
To target people they don't like, right?
They, they do what they can to target individuals who are saying things that, that they're not happy with.
And so in terms, and for Mr. Sarsour, he's one of many Palestinian rights activists who have been targeted by the administration.
Mr. Sarsour has gotten a tremendous amount of support from his community.
He is really, he is, he is a community leader.
He's the president of his mosque, which is the largest mosque in Wisconsin.
He is beloved by many, many people, whether they're Muslim or Jews or Christians.
So he has a very big support network because of who he is.
And unfortunately, it doesn't mean this because you have a large support network.
Doesn't mean that this administration isn't going to specifically go after you because of your speech.
And that's what's happening.
Yeah, thank you.