December 11, 2025
Somali-American Citizen Describes The ‘Terror’ After Being Detained By ICE In Minneapolis
Mubashir’s story is one of several attacks on Minneapolis’ Somali community
A Somali-American citizen residing in Minneapolis is speaking out after he was illegally detained for roughly two hours, saying it was for no reason other than his ethnicity.
Mubashir, who declined to give his last name out of fear of retaliation against his family and loved ones, stood before a crowd of reporters and supporters, alongside Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara, to tell the ordeal that occurred Dec. 9. The 20-year-old, who came to the U.S. as a child and became a naturalized American citizen, according to MPR News, said he could tell trouble was lurking when he stepped out for his lunch break.
“I was simply on my lunch break, I literally went downstairs from my building, I wasn’t outside for mere seconds before I saw a masked person running at me full speed,” he said.
“He tackled me, he pushed inside the restaurant as you can see in the video. “‘I told him I’m a U.S. citizen, what is going on?’ He didn’t seem to care.”
The agents handcuffed Mubashir before taking him across the street and pushing him in the snow. ICE agents were seen putting the victim in a chokehold while he can be heard shouting, “I have my ID!” without any response.
Mubashir said the men never identified themselves as ICE agents and wondered whether they could have been regular citizens — like him. One agent seen in the video was wearing a vest labeled as “Police Federal Officer,” while the others read “Police ICE.” His curiosity really sparked after the alleged agents put him in an unmarked car and had trouble with almost everything.
Mubashir was detained for about an hour after he refused to consent to having his photo taken. The men then attempted to take his fingerprints with their digital reader, but it didn’t work, resulting in them driving toward Fort Snelling, close to an ICE detention facility. The victim said they seem highly unfamiliar with the Minneapolis area to be agents. “While they were driving me all the way there, they were wasting time,” Mubashir said.
“They kept going back on the same highway. I told them, ‘Are you guys lost?’ They said, ‘This is our first time taking someone in.’ They had their maps out and everything, and they were trying to intimidate me.”
Mubashir’s story is one of several incidents on Minneapolis’ Somali community amid the Department of Homeland Security launch of “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities, according to CBS News, and verbal attacks from President Donald Trump who admitted to wanting the demographic out of the country and referred to state Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, as “garbage.” Frey labeled the agents’ actions blatantly unconstitutional. “What we saw by these ICE agents that clearly did not know what they were doing was violence and unwillingness to hear the simple truth, which he was repeating again and again, which is, ‘I’m an American citizen,’” the mayor said.
O’Hara called the action “embarrassing” and apologized to Mubashir for the horror he had to experience. “I apologize that this happened to you in my city, with people wearing vests that say ‘police.’ That’s embarrassing,” the police chief said. “Taken into custody for no reason at all, in clear violation of law and the Constitution of the United States for simply walking down the street and looking like he’s Somali,” said Mayor Frey.
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