I want to tell you all a story. It’s long, but it’s beautiful.
More than 19 months ago, after the Muslim Ban had been twice revised and fallen from the headlines, I got a call from a distraught woman in Columbus, Ohio. “I can’t find my husband,” she said. She and their baby daughter had waited eight hours for Abdikadir Mohamed at the John Glenn Columbus Internation Airport — but he never showed.
We eventually learned that Abdi, a Somali man living in South Africa, had been intercepted at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) by a stealth CBP unit — the Tactical Terrorism Response Team (TTRT) — designed to deny entry to travelers with valid documents on the basis of the same insidious stereotyping brought to you by the travel ban (and nearly 20 years of post-9/11 counter-terrorism policy). Abdi was one such traveler. Abdi’s wife, Malyuun, a U.S. citizen, had sponsored him for a green card. When he landed, he presented all of his documents and had his visa stamped “ADMITTED.” He grabbed his bags and rushed to catch his connecting flight to Columbus.
But two TTRT officers stopped him before he could get to his gate.
“Are you from Mogadishu?”
“Unlock your phone for us, sir.”
The officers used the pretext of a publicly available press release they found in his Gmail inbox to pull him into a small room, where armed officers questioned him for 15 hours without an interpreter. Abdi requested for one multiple times. Based on that interrogation, CBP claimed Abdi lied to get his visa by concealing affiliation with a subversive political group and threatened to put him on the next plane to Mogadishu, where he escaped seven years before.
Because Abdi was terrified to return to Somalia, he was transferred from JFK and soon thereafter sent to Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
That’s when I got the call from Malyuun. That’s when CUNY Law’s power kicked into high gear.
Talia Peleg and I have tag-teamed this case almost from its inception. We’ve developed a beautiful partnership over the past two years, supervising, working, thinking, and collaborating together.
Over winter break, we met Abdi a few times at Elizabeth; we were there for his Credible Fear Interview and handled his initial hearing at Elizabeth Immigration Court which is, perversely, inside the jail at Elizabeth Detention Center.
A joint team of students from the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project and the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic (INRC) joined right after winter break in January 2018: Eliana Horn ’18, Maria Marroquin ’19, and JP Perry ’18. They dove in head-first and drafted a strong Motion to Terminate with novel and impressively-researched arguments that Abdi had already been admitted into the U.S. and was, therefore, a green card holder, and that he never committed fraud and can subsequently be admitted to the United States.
They identified key evidence and experts, prepared direct examinations, corresponded professionally with opposing counsel, and prepared cross-examination of the JFK CBP officer that the government presented as its star witness. In court, the students conducted direct examinations and defended cross-examinations, and dealt laudably with an at-times difficult bench. They built strong relationships with our client who, to this day, reflects back on their support as invaluable in those first months. We all benefited from the tireless support of our colleagues in CLEAR and INRC, including Naz Ahmad, Nermeen Arastu, Bernice Cohn, and Ramzi Kassem, along with our students in CLEAR and INRC who provided key insights and support to their peers in case rounds. Ayesha Yasmin at Main Street Legal Services was instrumental in helping us secure the necessary interpretation of Hadija Abdi and the transcripts of the proceedings.
Those were difficult times, but our team persisted, buoyed always by Abdi’s shockingly patient perseverance, and Malyuun’s strength.
Their second baby was born in May 2018, while Abdi was still in detention. When we called the ICE officer to ask her to pass the good news along, she told us that it “wasn’t ICE protocol, the baby would be there on Monday” and that he “shouldn’t have left his baby behind anyway.” We got our first bad (in reasoning and result) merits decision from the judge on June 2018.
Over the summer of 2018, Talia and I continued to work with Abdi, supported by our colleagues in CLEAR and INRC, and buttressed by the work of the previous year’s student team.
In the fall of 2018, a new joint CLEAR/INRC team took over the case — Wilkiris Batista ’19, Maria Marroquin ’19, and Katie Roussos ’19. Meaningfully informed by Maria’s experience with the case, the team took off running, preparing a new round of direct examinations and to defend cross-examinations, along with drafting parole requests and brainstorming alternative advocacy strategies. Again in court, the team was impressive: nimble, adept and responsive to difficult questions and requests from DHS and the Court. In November, Abdi was taken to a hospital where he was shackled to a bed for 11 days and forbidden from speaking to anyone.
We eventually learned that he had developed tuberculosis as a result of ICE’s medical neglect — he’d been complaining of pain in his chest for months. The team, supported by INRC fellow Maya Leszczynski ’17, relentlessly pushed for access to Abdi, to get information about his health, and to share that information with Malyuun. With allies at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYPLI), including Karina Albistegui Adler, we sought out two dedicated doctors who examined Abdi at Elizabeth on Christmas Day, also helping us advocate for his care. We attached their letter to a 3rd parole request to ICE, but it was summarily denied like the two we had submitted before.
About a week after he was returned from the hospital, in November 2018, the immigration judge issued a second bad (in reasoning and result) merits decision, ruling Abdi inadmissible.
The student team had been hard at work on Abdi’s asylum application and submitted it to the court shortly thereafter. This was followed by an elegant briefing on the severe danger to our client if returned to Somalia, and that he wasn’t attached by affiliation to any subversive organizations. They again found and prepared experts — one in Boston, one in Denmark — and connected with three of Abdi’s siblings (two in Somalia and one in Turkey). The student team obtained affidavits from them all, and prepared those who could safely testify for testimony by phone. The team strategized with their peers in rounds about how and when to deploy the expert testimony.
But our students, being CUNY Law students, knew that creative advocacy was also necessary given the way things had been going in court — and with ICE’s influence on this country as a whole. So we did a couple of things.
With the support of Beena Ahmad ’10, we submitted a habeas corpus brief before the District of New Jersey, arguing that Abdi’s detention had become unconstitutionally prolonged.
Meanwhile, after consulting with Abdi, we met with a group of community-based organizations: the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Color of Change, Families for Freedom, Freedom to Thrive, and UndocuBlack who began the #BringAbdiHome campaign. You may have seen some of the flyers around the school. With the support of Mahum Shabir ’20, the organizers and students also coordinated a campaign comprised of multiple call-ins to the ICE officers charged with Abdi’s detention, congressional outreach, and a petition which garnered over 19,000 signatures.
We also began a sustained media outreach campaign around the case.
As the team graduated in mid-May, we still didn’t have a decision in the asylum case. We all stayed in touch, and Talia and I finished out the in-court testimony and closing statement with the benefit of hours and hours of student prep. On June 11, the organizers coordinated an action outside of Elizabeth Detention Center on the date of the last asylum hearing, where Malyuun was among the speakers. The judge told us that she’d have a decision for us in three weeks.
Three weeks to the day later, we got a call from the court. The decision was ready and in the mail:
Could you fax it our way in the meantime, by chance?
“No.”
E-mail?
“We don’t do e-mail.”
Well, what does it say?
“Let’s see here, it says … GRANTED.”
Excuse me?
“It says GRANTED, I said.”
Donna must have thought there was an elephant stampede that afternoon, as I sprinted over to Talia’s office.
Eight days later, Abdi called to tell us that ICE had given him his paperwork recognizing the asylum grant and that he’d be released that evening. And he was. Talia, Maria, Abdi and I got together that incredible day. Wilkiris and Katie were, of course, with us in spirit too. Abdi spent the next few days exploring what he called “New York Town,” including our very own CUNY Law School.
For her part, Malyuun was nervous about waiting at the Columbus airport for her husband again. Abdi wasn’t thrilled with his first experience flying either, so they agreed Malyuun would come and pick him up, driving back to Columbus together.
Abdi’s home now, with Malyuun and his two baby daughters. He sends his deepest gratitude to CUNY Law.
He told us the day we finished the hearing that someone else in the detention center had seen us, and told him that they thought his lawyers were little. Abdi just laughed like he always did.
Tarek Z. Ismail is an Associate Professor of Law at CUNY Law and previously served as Senior Staff Attorney in the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) project.