Flanked by DFL lawmakers from across the Twin Cities, Nasra Ahmed broke down in tears Wednesday as she recounted sharing a cell with a fellow U.S.-born citizen, a Native American woman who also detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the federal Whipple Building at Fort Snelling.
“She had gashes on her face. They had shattered her (car) windows,” said Ahmed, 23, a Somali-American who spent two days in federal detention last week after a rough arrest at the hands of a dozen ICE agents on St. Paul’s East Side. “We were both crying together. We were holding each other tight. I’ll never forget the fear that we both felt in our hearts that day.”
Federal officials have said they are targeting “the worst of the worst” criminals, but lawmakers have pointed to Ahmed’s experience as illustrative of the growing number of ICE arrests involving U.S. citizens and others with no criminal history since a large-scale mobilization of federal agents got underway in Minnesota in early January.
State Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, showed reporters video of an ICE stop in St. Cloud that resulted in the detention of a driver who was able to show evidence of his U.S. citizenship. He, too, is being held at the Whipple Building, Noor said.
State Rep. Samakab Hussein, DFL-St. Paul, said many detainees have been transferred to Texas for further processing, often without their family’s knowledge, and those who are released are put out on the streets of Houston or El Paso without their phones or any immediate way to contact relatives.
“Minnesota is better than this,” Hussein said. “We will not be silent. We will be demanding accountability. … It’s kidnapping for those people who are here legally.”
Appearing alongside state lawmakers in a Capitol press room, St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie said the city council will ask the governor’s office to freeze residential and small business evictions during a difficult time for many renters afraid to leave home and go to work, even if they have lawful status. The council later voted 6-0 to support making the request.
State Rep. Mara Isa Perez-Vega, DFL-St. Paul, said Ahmed and others detained by ICE will carry psychological wounds for years, and the St. Paul delegation will advocate for an infusion of state funding to support family behavioral services in St. Paul and Ramsey County.
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“This is trauma that is not ever going to leave this young woman for the rest of her life,” said Perez-Vega, who said she’s also working on legislation to support children who have been separated from their parents by federal action.
On social media, some critics have shared a 10 or 20-second clip of Ahmed’s detainment, in which it appears she spits forcefully toward at least one agent. Ahmed said that occurred after she was surrounded, pushed to the ground hard enough to produce cuts to the side of her head, handcuffed and called a racial slur.
“It was fight or flight,” she said.
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