America's Border Enforcement Is a Fascist Hellscape
It is always fun, as an immigrant in the U.S., to learn about yet another government body entrusted with the right to throw immigrants in detention for unlimited amounts of time. The Intercept reported today on the existence of a little-known Customs and Border Patrol task force, the Tactical Terrorism Response Team (TTRT) which subjects travelers that have already cleared immigration to extra screening.
One such traveler was Abkidadir Mohamed, who had a valid visa and traveled to Ohio from South Africa in December 2017 to be with his pregnant wife. The TTRT picked him up at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, interrogated him, refused him a translator, and eventually decided that he was part of a terrorist group, one which doesn’t actually appear on the U.S. Department of State’s list of terrorist organizations.
According to the Intercept, the CBP officers “went through his phone and found a press release from a political organization called the Ogaden National Liberation Front,” which apparently fueled their poor decision-making (emphasis added):
In an affidavit submitted during immigration proceedings, a CBP officer who interrogated Mohamed claimed that he had admitted to being part of the Ogaden National Liberation Front and that he should have disclosed that to the U.S. Embassy during the visa process. The officer also claimed that Mohamed had admitted to originally traveling to South Africa from Somalia on forged documents, and that he had no fear of returning to Somalia. He also indicated that he was part of the TTRT and that Mohamed had been randomly selected for an additional interview while at JFK. For his part, Mohamed denies admitting to having been part of the group and says that he had been unable to even understand the CBP officer’s questions after being denied a translator. In their exchange, Mohamed told the officer that he was from the Ogaden clan in Somalia, a larger ethnic grouping distinct from the Ogaden National Liberation Front.
After this interrogation, Mohamed was then transferred to an ICE detention facility in New Jersey, where he has remained in detention since. For seventeen months. During that time, he developed noninfectious tuberculosis, was denied parole while his asylum claim is being adjudicated, and missed the birth of his second daughter.