November 20, 2025
MARWAN MAROUF
11.20.25
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OPENING REMARKS
(We are ready to proceed, Your Honor, with a caveat. Would you be willing to give me an opportunity to speak for a few moments such that I may contextualize where we are on this case this afternoon?)
Your Honor, good afternoon. It’s an honor and a privilege to address you today. May it please the Court.
I appreciate the Court’s permission to, again, contextualize where we are on this case today. With the Court’s permission, I would also ask for an opportunity to provide brief closing remarks at the conclusion of our hearing today.
Your Honor, I know you would have very much liked to hear directly from Marwan himself today; he, too, would have wanted to speak for himself. However, Marwan suffers from Brugada Syndrome, which is a rare but potentially life-threatening cardiac condition. Despite the numerous and persistent efforts of our legal team – and even the intercession of our multiple Congressional allies – our appeals for his humanitarian release thus far have not been heard; and, the protraction of custody has taken its toll on him as it would on anyone who has lived a full, vibrant life as a model citizen of this country for 35 years. The physical strain and emotional toll in Marwan’s case create a layer of unsafety around him. Today marks the 60th day of Marwan’s detention and for a person of his gentle and softspoken nature, that is 60 days too long.
Given these realities, Marwan has made the difficult but self-respecting and self-preserving decision to not testify today. The choice is not born of fear nor from any reluctance to confront the allegations against him. It is a decision grounded in medical necessity and in the sober recognition that the stress of testifying could trigger consequences far more severe than I would like to think any would intend.
That said, your Honor, irrespective of that decision, it is our position that there is substantial evidence already in the record for the Court to decide in favor of Marwan’s applications before this Court. Marwan’s decision to not testify does NOT leave the Court without the evidence it needs.
We are eleven for Marwan – eleven attorneys altogether. Our documentary submissions reflect a case built meticulously and with great integrity for your consideration. Our witness lineup speaks to world-class experts Kay Guinane, Paul Carroll, and John Cline, paired with the deeply credible and consistent statements of Marwan’s family members themselves. To this end, the record is replete with evidence to overwhelmingly overcome and dismantle the government’s allegations and affirmatively establish the profound hardship Marwan’s removal would impose on his qualifying relatives. The evidence is abundant and it more than satisfies the burden required for the relief he seeks.
Again, I speak for him – not because he lacks courage, credibility, or conviction. He possesses all three in spades. I speak because his medical condition, prolonged detention, and the attendant cumulative emotional toll have made testifying an untenable hardship and risk. His silence is not the silence of surrender. It is not hesitation and it is certainly not an admission. He is silent because self-preservation is an affirmative choice in the face of this current hardship. His silence is an act of resolve, a deliberate and protective choice, to safeguard his health such that he may continue to support his family and reclaim the normalcy that detention has disrupted.
As such, Judge, and as an officer of the court before you, I respectfully request that you allow a few minutes for our attorneys to confer off-the-record with DHS in order to determine if we may come to an agreement on this case. If it’s possible to put us in a separate room or simply remove the other non-lawyer attendees at the hearing, that would be ideal so that we may essentially come to an optimal resolution of this case.
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CLOSING REMARKS
From the outset, let me acknowledge that in speaking for Marwan I will fail to do him justice because justice cannot be done for a person who is as deeply good as he is.
In these 60 days of Marwan’s detention, I have gotten to know a man – who the hundreds who wished to be present today, and very possibly virtually are, have long known as a softspoken, hardworking, family man and a civic-minded community leader.
Don’t let his quiet, shy demeanor fool you – he is a moral icon and a character giant to our hearts and minds.
I truly wish you could have heard directly from Marwan himself.
Unfortunately, because of Marwan’s Brugada Syndrome and due to the inordinate strain – forced to reconcile his deep love for this country and his family with an abiding and urgent need for self-care and self-preservation – Marwan had determined his only real remaining option might be to bid us farewell and start anew elsewhere. It is the earnest prayer of many that today’s order by you, Your Honor, accord him that opportunity.
Yet, I so much wish you could have heard from him and his family firsthand about what type of a man he is – a faithful and trustworthy husband, a doting and loving father. And, he was a father figure and brother to many (I do mean many).
I wish you could have heard from him to have been able to judge for yourself his truthfulness and righteousness as a person – far removed from the allegations before you in that A-file.
Out of respect for my client’s wishes, I will not address them specifically before you today, although I have strong insights and sharp legal judgments about them.
Instead, I will do three things. And, believe me, I understand my arguments are not evidence.
First, I will affirm that Marwan is an honorable and dignified person of noble character. He has been asked about the government’s allegations several times in the past and he has always consistently spoken truthfully and blamelessly.
Second, I will tell you a story by analogy.
Back in 2020, you applied for a promotion you deserved. Due to the red tape of a bloated, bourgeois and bureaucratic machinery, your application stalled. You kept checking on it over the years in the hopes it would come through, but to no avail. In fact, five years passed. You took another job, and on your way to work one day after dropping off your youngest child at school, you noticed strangely a convoy of unmarked vehicles trailing you. You were stopped and taken into the back of one of those vehicles for questioning. You were handed a letter telling you your application for a promotion had been denied. The officers with their shiny badges smiled and politely explained that a promotion could never have been given to a person who, over 25 years ago, had donated to the ASPCA. Dogs, they said, had long been classified as “terrorists,” and your $50 monthly donation to shelter an abused animal constituted “material support for terrorism.” After being snatched up on the street, and given this absurd news – again, with impeccable politeness – you were hauled off to jail. You wished then that you had had an opportunity to kiss your wife one last time, smile as you handed your youngest son his lunch bag, hold your three other kids and tell them how much you loved them. Little did you realize that that morning was going to be your last chance to lock the door of your house on your way out, to walk out onto your familiar sidewalk and get into your car, to wave good morning to your neighbor of 35 years, to have physical human contact with all those who had known you and loved you for so long. And, that’s the price you had to pay – all of it sacrificed – for the narrative of the “boogeyman” to exist.
Judge, you may find this narrative incredulous – so do we, and this is the very reach of many cases in our immigration courts today – the exceedingly similar stories I have been told by several clients – and the bridge many of our judges are being asked to cross to construct findings that do profound harm to our legal and moral fabric.
And, that is because the “boogeyman” is a complicated guy – there is a whole architecture around him – within the false narrative are embedded layers of other false narratives. One such narrative is that certain civil society work is naturally “terrorism-adjacent.” I keep asking myself – how did Marwan, a man with not so much as a traffic ticket to his name, after 35 years of a law-abiding life – end up here today?
Third, I will speak to the specific few things Marwan did wish to be stated on his behalf:
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- Accepting a removal order is not admitting any wrongdoing;
- Humbly, he considers himself a person who has lived the last 35 years in the U.S. as a man of service to local mosques, schools, and community organizations.
- HLF was only one of dozens of organizations he has supported, and it was legally authorized to operate at the time he supported it;
- He knows a lot of people, but that is not the same as having information about HLF’s internal operations, as the government is saying;
- It has been deeply hurtful to be treated like a criminal, but he believes he has left the DFW community better based on his years of service; and
- He encourages his kids and the community to serve and follow his example.
Before witnessing Marwan’s suffering as a result of his detention for myself, believing we would show him off on his day in court, I had prepared an alternate version of closing arguments to tell you this:
Judge, one day we will all claim to have always been against this. Let that day be today. You exist to protect him. Your appointment to your seat of honor means something today. Let the record reflect that on this day, in this courtroom, justice was not another casualty. Let the legacy of this moment be courage, not complicity. Let Marwan walk out of Bluebonnet not as a measure, not as a target, not as a Palestinian, but as an American. A deserving American. A better angel of America.
With grieving hearts, that day has not come, and therefore that day is not today.
And, Judge, only as a cautionary tale, I add this for all those who are in detention today:
What of the better angels of our nature? Minus a grant of relief, they did not show up today. They are on planes departing this country every day as this administration effectuates removals at scale. This is a stain we can never recover from. This is a wound that does not heal with the next election or the next memo. Please consider that all the federal judges, advocates, scholars, human rights defenders, and interfaith leaders – raising alarms and drawing attention to this constitutional crisis – cannot be wrong. This is what happens when systems collapse – when care, caution and humanity are left on the side of the road. What we do today can be irreversible and irreparable. What due process in the future for those deprived of due process today? What is stripped today cannot be restored tomorrow.
It’s easy to say Marwan has lost America. But, the truth cuts the other way: America has lost Marwan, and in doing so, has lost a piece of its own promise. He is a person we should have safeguarded and not sacrificed.
Please do accept my comments as an indictment of our current system. But, please do also accept them as a shield for all those who are not able to speak for themselves.
My deepest consolation for Marwan is his own self-consolation. We are a people who believe in God and an afterlife. We believe that what God has intended for us no man can deny us, and what God has denied us no man can grant us. Not even a judge. And, we believe that God is Enough and God knows best. And, what He decides for us is the best decision. Marwan has spent his 60 days in deep spiritual reflection and prayer. Although we thought we were leading him to the Garden of Eden, he was in fact leading us. He has made his choice, he has made his peace, and he has found strength and trust in days ahead when he will bask in the same sunlight, just a stone’s throw, a geographical distance, from where he is now. And, I know that God has heard his prayers and would never allow a man of such mighty principles to be let down even where manmade laws have.
Thank you.
