A lawsuit filed this week asks for the release of Omar Jamal, a Somali community advocate and Ramsey County sheriff civilian officer who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month.
Jamal was picked up by ICE agents on Aug. 29 in Minneapolis and remains at the Freeborn County jail in Albert Lea, where many federal detainees are held. In 2005, Jamal was convicted in federal court in Tennessee on immigration fraud and sentenced to a year of probation.
Omar Jamal speaks at a news conference at the state Capitol in St. Paul on Jan. 27, 2005. (John Doman / Pioneer Press)
Attorneys for Jamal, of Minneapolis, filed a petition in U.S. District Court of Minnesota asking a judge to immediately review the legality of Jamal’s detention. A temporary restraining order seeks to stop ICE from sending him to another country without full due process.
“To be perfectly clear: the United States government is legally and permanently barred from deporting my client, Omar Jamal, to Somalia,” said Abdiqani Jabane, Jamal’s lead counsel, on Wednesday. “This is not a matter of administrative discretion; it is a final, binding order from a U.S. immigration court.”
An immigration judge in 2005 granted Jamal “withholding of removal” to Somalia after finding his life or freedom would be threatened there, according to Jabane, who added the decision was upheld in 2011.
“This form of protection is mandatory and permanent,” he said. “It means the government cannot send him to Somalia under any circumstances unless a court overturns that order, which has not happened.”
Since Somalia is legally off the table, ICE has spent over a decade trying to send Jamal to Canada, which has refused to give him a travel document, said Nico Ratkowski, Jabane’s co-counsel.
“Basically, the only thing they can do is they could theoretically deport him to a third country, if they’re willing to accept him,” Ratkowski said. “But, in reality, that’s never happening.”
If Canada wants to give Jamal a travel document, Ratkowski said, ICE is “absolutely allowed to deport him there. But if they want to try to deport him to Uganda, an immigration judge should get to review whether or not that’s actually safe.”
Applied in Canada, U.S.
According to a 2003 federal indictment, Jamal applied for refugee status after arriving in Toronto in 1989 at age 16 and was granted immigrant status two years later. He then failed to disclose his Canadian immigrant status when he applied for asylum in Memphis in 1998.
Jamal was indicted and arrested in 2003, when he was the executive director of the now-defunct Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul and an outspoken critic of government efforts to deport Somali refugees to their war-torn homeland. He was found guilty of six counts of immigration fraud, and at risk of deportation.
Jamal’s arrest in Minneapolis was caught on video by the conservative news website Newsmax, which was on a ride-along with the ICE St. Paul field office. A portion of the Newsmax report was later shared on Homeland Security’s X account.
The Department of Homeland Security soon released a statement that said Jamal’s “rap sheet” also includes assault and a court ordered restraining order from his wife and children.
Jabane disputes that claim, saying Jamal told him the assault allegation and restraining order were dismissed. Court records show his criminal history in Minnesota is made up of traffic violations.
Law enforcement work
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Jamal has worked with law enforcement, raised a family and remained in full compliance with the law, Jabane said; his arrest “shocked a community that knows him not as a danger, but as a bridge-builder.”
Jamal, who joined the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office as a civilian community service officer in 2020, also has the backing of Sheriff Bob Fletcher. At the request of Jabane, Fletcher provided an affidavit in which he said he supports a request for Jamal’s release under supervision.
“In my experience, Mr. Jamal has demonstrated professionalism and a commitment to community well-being,” the affidavit read. “I have never known him to pose a threat to public safety. On the contrary, he has often acted as a stabilizing presence and a mediator in complex situations.”
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