When Aliya Rahman was violently pulled from her car by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a protest in south Minneapolis on Jan. 13, it was a wake-up call for many Minnesota immigrants with disabilities and organizations that serve them.
Rahman, a Minneapolis resident with a traumatic brain injury and autism, was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when she was caught up in a traffic jam caused by ICE vehicles. As multiple agents screamed conflicting instructions at her, one even breaking her passenger side window, she yelled, “I’m disabled!” “Too late,” one of the agents told her.
“Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground and people leaned on my back,” Rahman said at a Feb. 3 Congressional forum on excessive use of force by DHS employees. She was carried face down by her cuffed arms and legs as she continued to yell that she had a brain injury. “I now cannot lift my arms normally,” she said at the forum.
In the two and a half months since Operation Metro Surge flooded the Twin Cities with as many as 3,000 federal agents, disabled Minnesotans reported heightened levels of anxiety over the aggressive enforcement.
The fear of potential ICE encounters kept many at home. It disrupted care systems and routines many rely on. Some small business owners were forced to close due to safety concerns. And those detained by ICE faced even more direct violence.
When videos of Rahman’s violent arrest spread across social media, “We all realized we are not ready,” Jessalyn Akerman-Frank, co-founder of Deaf Equity, said through Zoom chat. “We don’t have resources, the information is not out there. Our community has no idea how to defend themselves, what words to use, what they should or should not do.”
Fear of being arrested
For Mai Vang, who owns the Eggroll Queen food truck chain, ICE activity felt distant at first. She is a U.S. citizen, and didn’t think she would have to worry about interaction with federal agents. But the impact grew closer as people she knew shared stories of family members detained by ICE. Rahman’s arrest also hit close to home.
“I saw myself in that situation,” Vang said, through written responses. “If there was no mercy shown there, what would happen to someone like me?”
Over time, her anxiety over the ICE surge, and the aggressive tactics used during arrests, grew.
“For me, the fear grew deeper — not just as a person of color, but as a deaf person who may not hear instructions or respond quickly,” Vang said through written responses.
“I am not afraid of deportation. I am a citizen and have done nothing wrong. I am afraid of miscommunication. If I am approached suddenly and cannot hear commands, I worry the situation could escalate before I understand what is happening. I worry about being taken somewhere — or worse, getting hurt — before my family even knows,” she said.
Vang added that the impact was not just personal, but also felt in her business. Events that were busy last year were much slower and sales dropped more than 60% at times at the six food trucks she runs in the winter.
Asma Abdilleh, assistant director of the Minnesota Deaf Muslim Community, also worries about miscommunication if she or other deaf immigrants are approached by ICE agents.
She left home recently with a different purse and realized she didn’t have her ID on her. “I almost had a heart attack because I was afraid that if ICE were to approach me, how I could identify myself,” she told Sahan Journal through a video phone call.
Many people with hearing disabilities carry communication cards to convey that they are disabled, but Abdilleh thinks that when it comes to ICE, situations have often grown violent quickly, leaving no time for that communication. “They don’t seem to care,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to matter to them if we can communicate and that is also causing fear in the communities.” “There is absolutely no reason that people should be detained and not have the ability to communicate. It’s not an additional request, it’s a basic right,” Celena Ponce, the founder and director of Minnesota-based Hands United, said. Her organization works to reduce language barriers for deaf and hard of hearing immigrants across the country.
Fear of detention
While interaction with ICE itself is a major concern, possible detention inside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building is even more frightening, with advocates saying they lack basic information about whether detainees are given the necessary auxiliary aids — like sign language interpreters and braille materials — and services they need, even though it is required by law.
“I have yet to deal with a deaf detainee or a deaf individual who has interacted with ICE where they have been offered an interpreter at all,” Ponce said.
She has been working with an individual who has been detained in an ICE facility for eight months, mostly in solitary confinement because there is no one in the detention center they can communicate with. “They’re not being given access to an interpreter. They’re not being given access to video phones, even though there are video phones at the facility,” Ponce said. She didn’t share further details about the person, who is not from Minnesota, due to concerns for their safety.
Rahman said that despite the “terrible violation” that was her arrest, “it is still nothing compared to the horrific practices I saw inside the Whipple center.” Her testimony shed some light into the conditions inside the local ICE headquarters for those with disabilities.
She said she was denied medical screening or access to a lawyer and wasn’t able to get help when her speech began to slur. Agents at first didn’t know if the facility had a wheelchair. When they finally found one to take her to interrogation, one taunted: ““You were driving, right? So your legs do work.”
“I pleaded for emergency medical care for over an hour after my vision had become blurry, my heart rate went through the roof, and the pain in my neck had become unbearable. It was denied,” Rahman said.
Shut out of public life
In a recent survey of more than 50 autism service providers found widespread, fear-driven disruptions among a population that depends heavily on routine and predictability.
The ongoing survey, by the Autism Society of Minnesota and the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain at the University of Minnesota, reported that ICE activity had forced people to stay at home and miss services, caused heightened anxiety over family members or friends being targeted. Some respondents reported half or more of their clients missing sessions.
This forced self-isolation for safety, which can mean missing out on essential health care services, can be a “very dangerous choice” because “disability is already an incredibly isolating experience,” Ivory Taylor, one of the founders of AmplifyMN said. AmplifyMN is a grassroots organization working for disability justice through art, storytelling and community.
Ayanle Mohamud, 25, said his routine has been completely upended since October last year, and grew worse when his mother — his primary caregiver — had to go back to work when funding for caregiving services was halted as the state added new fraud prevention measures early this year.
Mohamud loved going to Rosedale Mall and the Mall of America to walk around and greet people. “I like being around people because it makes me feel, makes me feel I’m part of a community,” he said, sitting with his sister Istar Mohamed at a Subway in St. Paul.
For those who wanted to protest ICE, like Shaunte Brown, it is no longer a safe option. Brown, who has fetal alcohol syndrome, had been active as an advocate for disability rights, protesting in public places. She said it’s important for her to “connect with people and still be able to see them, be able to support them and support myself. It’s a way of letting people know how important it is for us to feel like we are just like everybody else, and being side by side like everybody else,” she said. But for now, she feels like she is in isolation.
Ramping up resources
Many local providers and service organizations have scrambled to respond to the heightened vulnerability disabled immigrants are facing.
The Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing has resources on how to navigate an interaction with ICE. People who are deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing are also encouraged to carry communication cards to convey their disability to agents.
Nonprofits like Arc Minnesota are ramping up efforts to include experiences of disabled people in citywide immigration forums, raising awareness about apps like Ready Now which can notify family, friends and lawyers of someone’s detention.
There is also a coordinated effort by volunteer-based organizations to expand a network of people who can respond to those who have lost caregivers as a result of the increased ICE presence in Minnesota.
Advocates say building the necessary resources will take time and must be incorporated into the broader community response with leadership from within the community itself. For AmplifyMN’s Taylor, that inclusivity is about access.
“Being able to access the brilliance of disabled folks to lead in a time where people are being asked to tap incredible personal stories of resilience, and nobody’s better at that than marginalized disabled people,” she said.
Mohamud said it’s important to him, as for many on the autism spectrum, to lead an independent life. But ever since ICE activity ramped up in Minnesota, he has had to stop going out by himself. “I’ve always missed that … going out to places by myself and buying food by myself, and having people to wave ‘hi’ to,” he said. “Sometimes I just wish the world could just go back to the way it was.”
