British political commentator Sami Hamdi shared recently about his harrowing ordeal. He was soon arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at San Francisco International Airport. His detention took place on April 26, 2025. This happened at a time when he was on a national speaking tour, exposing what he describes as the American government’s “Israel first” policies. This episode has opened a large discussion about the use of immigration enforcement to silence free speech in the U.S.
Hamdi intended to travel back to the UK on November 13, 2025. In fact, he had been arrested three weeks prior during a highly publicized and controversial arrest. The U.S. government never charged him with any crimes nor ever indicated that he was any kind of security threat. Instead, his visa was suddenly cancelled without notice, triggering a new charge of overstaying his visa.
Hamdi’s case is handled by Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) lawyers. As dramatic as the facts sound, it is the implications on civil liberties that make this case so notable. He recounted his time in detention as traumatic and terrifying. He spent nearly a year in immigration detention. During that time, he suffered acute abdominal pain without any treatment until his wife took his story to the press.
“I was thrown in the back of a van in a very tight, claustrophobic space, driven for five hours to a random location in the middle of nowhere, not being told where I’m going, not allowed to call my lawyer.” – Sami Hamdi
The awful conditions of the detention facility had a deep impact on Hamdi. He didn’t imagine the despair in his fellow inmates’ eyes. All of them, like so many others, met the same fate and had yet to even see a judge. Hamdi reflected on this experience, stating, “The worst part of my detention was watching all of the other inmates around me, and just how miserable they’ve become, not because they don’t deserve to be in America but simply because they’re not even being brought in front of a judge.”
The Trump administration justified Hamdi’s detention by painting him a “terrorist sympathizer.” This assertion went both unproven and unchallenged. Rather, they were playing an edited montage produced by the far-right, pro-Israel group Memri as part of their justification. Hamdi criticized this move, noting that “they knew it was out of context, they knew that it did not reflect anything that people claimed that it reflected.”
Throughout his ordeal in detention, Hamdi experienced a profound depression. He called the horrifying conditions at the detention center “heartbreaking.” The mental anguish in seeing others suffer only added to his personal trauma.
After nearly ten months in detention, Hamdi agreed to leave the United States when he was assured the right to apply for a new U.S. visa. He lamented that his plight is an example of what’s wrong with U.S. immigration policy in general.
“What they want is to ensure that people like us don’t go to America.” – Sami Hamdi
In addition to the lawsuit, Hamdi speaks out publicly against these practices. He urges us to take civics education seriously and raise awareness about civil rights and immigration reform. He continues to stick up for justice and transparency in telling how people are treated by the immigration system.