British political commentator Sami Hamdi will voluntarily leave the United States after spending more than two weeks in immigration detention due to his supporters’ criticism of Israel. The Trump administration has accused him of supporting Hamas.
Hamdi, a Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the United States when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on October 26. The day before his arrest, he had just spoken at the annual gala of the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The group said in a statement late Monday that Hamdi “has chosen to accept the offer to voluntarily leave the United States.”
“It’s simple: Sami should never have spent a night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘crime’ was speaking out about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against the Palestinian people,” CAIR California Director Hassam Ailush said in a statement.
Hamdi’s detention was part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreign nationals in the United States who are accused of inciting or participating in unrest or publicly supporting protests against Israeli military operations in Gaza.
These enforcement measures have been criticized by civil rights groups as violating the constitutional guarantee of free speech, which applies to everyone in the country, not just American citizens.
Zahra Billou, executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, said Tuesday that plans for Hamdi’s departure are still being finalized but could materialize later this week. “There are no conditions for voluntary departure,” Birou said, adding that it would not prevent him from re-obtaining a U.S. visa in the future.
CAIR said Hamdi’s charging documents filed with immigration court did not accuse him of criminal activity or security concerns, but only listed an overstay on his visa, which the government said was the reason for revoking his visa.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Tuesday that Hamdi has requested voluntary departure and “ICE is willing to arrange for his removal from this country.”
The State Department said it could not comment on specific cases due to “the confidentiality of visa records.”
CAIR announced that Hamdi, 35, was detained after vocally criticizing the Israeli government during a speaking tour in the United States.
At the time of Hamdi’s arrest, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the State Department had revoked Hamdi’s visa and that ICE had transferred him to immigration detention. The Department of Homeland Security later accused him of supporting the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
In a statement at the time, McLaughlin quoted his own remarks in a video posted online shortly after the Hamas-led attack, asking: “How many of you felt it in your heart when you heard the news of what had happened? How many of you felt elation? Allah, Akbar.”
Hamdi later said his intention was not to glorify the attack, but to suggest that the violence was a “natural outcome of the oppression being inflicted on the Palestinian people.”
The State Department did not specifically state Hamdi’s behavior that led to the revocation, but the department said the United States “has no obligation to accept” foreign nationals the administration deems to support terrorism or actively undermine the safety of Americans, and continues to revoke visas for those who engage in such activities.
Santana writes for The Associated Press.
