A leading Muslim civil rights group in the US applauded Monday as the Trump administration’s agreement to release British pro-Palestinian commentator Sami Hamdi acknowledged that he is not “a danger to the community or to national security,” after he was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention for more than two weeks.
Hamdi’s family and the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been representing the journalist, expressed relief at the news that he had accepted an offer to leave the US voluntarily.
Hamdi was detained at San Francisco International Airport on October 26, mid-way through a US speaking tour during which he spoke about Palestinian rights and Israel’s US-backed war in Gaza, which has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians.
The journalist, who is Muslim and of Tunisian and Algerian descent, had just spoken at an event in Sacramento, where he called on US leaders to take an “America First” rather than “Israel First” approach to its policy in the Middle East.
As Prem Thakker reported at Zeteo News, two “unelected, far-right, Islamophobic figures,” Laura Loomer and Amy Mekelburg, took credit for “investigating” Hamdi. Mekelburg published a report that called on the US to deport Hamdi and prohibit him from entering the country, claiming he was “training US Muslims in digital agitation, electoral sabotage, and political warfare in alignment with Muslim Brotherhood doctrine.”
Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist, has become known during President Donald Trump’s second term as someone with a considerable influence over the White House. Two days after Mekelburg’s report was published, the US State Department revoked Hamdi’s visa, and a day later ICE arrested him.
"His forthcoming release is welcome, but it does not erase the message this sends to every activist and journalist watching—and every authoritarian dictatorship worldwide who can now claim they are following America’s example.”
The Trump administration said at the time that it had “no obligation to host foreigners who support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans,” and appeared to reference comments Hamdi made after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. The Department of Homeland Security shared a video clip released by the pro-Israel group Memri, which showed Hamdi saying Palestinians should “celebrate their victory."
As The Guardian reported, Hamdi later clarified those remarks, saying, “We don’t celebrate blood lust, we don’t celebrate death and we don’t celebrate war… What Muslims are celebrating is not war, they’re celebrating the revival of a cause—a just cause—that everybody thought was dead, this is an important distinction.”
Hamdi’s wife, Soumaya Hamdi, told The Guardian after his arrest that the Memri video had been “edited in a way to frame Sami in a horrible light and produced by an organization that is very well known to be anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, Islamophobic, and out there to target people who are speaking up against the genocide against Palestinians."
CAIR-CA emphasized Monday that in Hamdi’s immigration charging documents, the US government alleged only a visa overstay “and never identified any criminal conduct or security grounds.”
“It is this simple: Sami never should have spent a single night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘offense’ was speaking clearly about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians," said Hussam Ayloush, CEO of CAIR-CA.
“Sami’s case shows how quickly our government officials are willing to sacrifice our First Amendment and free press when a journalist uses his platform to dare put America first before Israel," said Ayloush. "His forthcoming release is welcome, but it does not erase the message this sends to every activist and journalist watching—and every authoritarian dictatorship worldwide who can now claim they are following America’s example.”
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