British Muslim commentator Sami Hamdi agrees to leave US after immigration detention
WASHINGTON– British political commentator Sami Hamdi will voluntarily leave the United States after spending more than two weeks in immigration detention over what his supporters see as his criticism of Israel. The Trump administration accused him of encouraging Hamas.
Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the United States when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on October 26. He had just spoken at the annual gala of the Sacramento, California, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the day before his arrest.
In a statement Monday evening, the organization said Hamdi had “chosen to accept an offer to voluntarily leave the United States.”
“It’s as simple as this: Sami should never have spent a single night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘offense’ was speaking out about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against the Palestinians,” CAIR California chapter CEO Hussam Ayloush said in a statement.
Hamdi’s detention was part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to identify and potentially deport thousands of aliens in the United States who it says have fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israeli military operations in Gaza.
These coercive measures have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections of free speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just American citizens.
Zahra Billoo, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, said Tuesday that the logistics of Hamdi’s departure were still being worked out but could happen later this week. Billoo said there were “no conditions on voluntary departure” and that he was not prohibited from applying for another U.S. visa in the future.
CAIR said Hamdi’s charging document in immigration court did not accuse him of criminal conduct or security concerns, but only mentioned overstaying his visa, which they blamed on the government revoking his visa.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement Tuesday that Hamdi had requested voluntary departure and that “ICE will happily arrange for his removal from this country.”
The State Department said that due to the “confidentiality of visa records,” it could not comment on specific cases.
CAIR said Hamdi, 35, was arrested in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during a speaking tour in the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of Hamdi’s arrest that the State Department had revoked his visa and ICE had subjected him to immigration proceedings. Homeland Security then accused him of supporting Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023.
In a statement at the time, McLaughlin cited remarks he made in a video posted online shortly after the Hamas attacks in which he asked: “How many of you felt this in your heart when you heard this had happened? How many of you felt euphoria? Allah Akbar.”
Hamdi later said his intention was not to praise the attacks but to suggest that the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is imposed on Palestinians.”
The State Department did not say specifically what Hamdi said or did that triggered the revocation, but in a post on
