Mohammed
“I AM UNABLE TO IMAGINE THAT A PERSON CAN ENCOUNTER PRISON FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS FOR SIMPLY BEING A REFUGEE.” – Mohammed, RAICES Client
When Mohammed arrived in the U.S. to seek asylum in early 2021, he believed that he arrived at the land of safety and the end of his suffering. However, it quickly became clear that he was at the beginning of a new but familiar form of state-sanctioned torture.
The U.S. likely targeted Mohammed for being an Arab Muslim and imprisoned him solely for the act of seeking political asylum. More than 2.5 years later, he remains in government custody.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has systematically targeted and vilified immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees with practices rooted in fear-mongering, xenophobia, and violence — and Mohammed is yet another victim of an agency that was built on the understanding that immigrants are the enemy.
Mohammed came to the U.S. in search of a new nation to call home after facing great suffering, stress, and discrimination in Yemen, a country facing a humanitarian crisis amidst generations-long sectarian conflict along regional, tribal, and religious identities and ideologies. An advocate for a unified government in Yemen, Mohammed was beaten and hurt for his political beliefs and persecuted for his ethnicity.
Mohammed traveled to the U.S. at the height of the pandemic, hoping for freedom and safety. But when he surrendered to border police and requested asylum, Mohammed was transferred to a federal prison.
Why?
The U.S. government charged Mohammed with a rare federal law that has been used to target asylum seekers from Muslim-majority countries. While citizens from Muslim-majority countries make up less than 5% of all people who attempt asylum at the southern border, this law — known as “failure to report” — is used to charge more than 60% of people from these countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and Mali, according to an analysis of hundreds of federal court records as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Mohammed is a victim of DHS, which exists to criminalize and otherize disenfranchised community members. Remember, the U.S. government created DHS in the aftermath of 9/11 with a vague mission: to keep the homeland “safe.”But instead, DHS turned immigrants into the enemy — including and especially Muslim men.
Mohammed has initiated several attempts at a hunger strike over the past few weeks to gain his freedom — and out of sheer desperation — but officials have threatened to obtain a court order to force-feed Mohammed rather than release him from detention.
RAICES is working hard to secure Mohammed’s freedom, using every legal tool at our disposal to ensure that he is released from immigration prison as soon as possible.
With his life on the line amidst hunger strikes and threats of forced feedings, we are committed to amplifying his story and building public pressure on DHS to act humanely. Together, we can ensure people like Mohammed are given a fair chance at seeking safety and dignity in the U.S.
