British journalist Sami Hamdi detained at SFO after Department of Homeland Security deems him a threat to national security

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — British journalist and political commentator Sami Hamdi had his visa revoked at San Francisco International Airport Sunday morning.

Hamdi had been in Sacramento speaking to the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Now, there’s concern that he will be deported.

“He was, as we say, abducted at SFO, and we believe he was taken — as far as we know — to a detention center in Bakersfield,” said Reshad Noorzay, executive director of CAIR-Sacramento Valley Central Valley office.

CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, said Hamdi was detained at SFO even though he had a valid visa.

MORE: CA journalist among those detained by Israeli military while aboard Gaza-bound flotilla, report says

Saturday night, he spoke at a CAIR Gala in Sacramento

“He has been publicly speaking about the genocide in Gaza, openly speaking against the Israeli apartheid occupation,” Noorzay said.

Hamdi was heading to speak at another CAIR Gala in Florida when ICE detained him.

The Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary posted on “X” that Hamdi poses a threat to national security.

She said, “Those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit the country.”

“We see it as a clear violation of First Amendment protections. You know, federal authorities here detained him at the behest of a anti-Muslim extremist individual, Laura Loomer, and a group that had been advocating for his detention and for the revoking of his visa on baseless claims,” Noorzay said.

CAIR said their attorneys are working to get Hamdi released.

Hamdi was scheduled to speak at several Canadian universities in the past, but those were canceled.

Critics say he celebrated the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Hamdi says that’s not true.

Attorney Marc Van Der Hout says his firm represents Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian American student at Columbia University.

MORE: Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention

Van Der Hout said the Trump Administration also tried to deport his client for speaking out against what’s happening in Gaza. Vander Hout said his client was released from federal immigration detention after 104 days.

“I think this is the latest attempt by this administration to silence people who want to speak out against what this administration is doing in Israel and what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza. This has to stop, because it’s purely protected First Amendment right speech that people are being harassed for and being imprisoned for now,” said Van Der Hout.

ABC7 News reached out to ICE and the U.S Department of Homeland Security but has not heard back.

William Gould, emeritus law professor at Stanford Law School said the detention by ICE is a sign.

“What it says is that the current climate is very much like the terrible McCarthy period that we went through in this country in the 1950s, where positions held by those who held dissenting views were suppressed, and where sanctions were employed against them,” Gould said. “The threat is even greater than it was in the period of McCarthy, because now we see the executive office now repressing free speech. This should never be tolerated in a free society, here as well as elsewhere.”