Federal law enforcement officers. (AP Photo/Tim Sullivan)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KFGO/WCCO) – A 23-year old Somali-American woman is recounting her experience of being arrested by ICE two weeks ago in St. Paul.
Nasra Ahmed, a U.S. citizen born in Minnesota, was arrested by federal agents at an apartment building and detained for two days.
“I was waiting for these two men to hold the door for me, and I told them, ‘hey, hey, can you hold the door for me?’ And I walked right in the middle,” Ahmed explains. “And when I was in the middle, ICE came. They came out of their cars. They asked me to see my ID.”
Ahmed claims she was the victim of excessive abuse by those agents.
“They pushed me hard,” she said. “They used a lot of violence. My body still hurts. I got a concussion.”
Ahmed said she was initially taken to The Whipple Building at Fort Snelling, where ICE has been detaining people, before being transferred to Sherburne County Jail.
“ICE came to my neighborhood, where my neighborhood is a very Somali neighborhood,” Ahmed described. “And they kidnapped me. They took me, they arrested and detained me for two days and I was put in county jail. Then there was this ICE agent who called me a racial slur.”
Ahmed says she stands defiant.
“I am proud to say that I’ve survived ICE,” Ahmed said. “I’m proud to say that I stood up for what is right, and I will carry this on my shoulders even though I am fearful.”
“The record of incompetence and cruelty by the Trump administration and Department of Homeland Security Sec. Noem is growing each day,” U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum said a statement regarding the arrest of Ahmed. “Minnesotans across the state are facing masked, unprofessional, untrained federal agents who are making people feel afraid in their own communities by wreaking havoc. How is DHS and ICE making Minnesota and our nation any safer?”
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