Nearby, children play, soldiers congregate, and rickshaws speed by under the scorching sun. Mukhtar spent most of his life in the United States but has struggled to readapt to conservative Somali society since being deported in under the first Donald Trump presidency. This includes more than 4, Somalis who, like Mukhtar, face deportation to the country of their birth.
But lawyers, activists and Somalis who were deported from the US in previous years say the plan may put lives at risk as insecurity and instability still plague Somalia, readapting to a country many left as children is difficult, and work opportunities are scarce.
Mukhtar and his family were among the first to flee Somalia after the collapse of the government in They left for neighbouring Kenya before Mukhtar and his older brother made it to the US as refugees. Though he tried to get his life on track, in , he was charged with armed robbery. A few months in, ICE agents brought him a document to sign, saying he would be deported to Somalia. It was and during that time , US-backed Ethiopian troops were in the country battling splinter groups that rose from the ashes following the ouster of the Islamic Courts Union, and the subsequent rise of its youth military wing, al-Shabab.
Tired of being in prison, Mukhtar decided to sign the document. When he was arrested for burglary in , he expected to be released after completing his one-year sentence, but ICE showed up again and sent him back to Northwest Detention Center for 11 months.
But in December , he was among 92 Somalis put on a deportation flight manned by ICE agents that prompted an international outcry after the plane did not make it to its destination for logistical reasons and it emerged that the deportees were abused en route. They really beat us and, mind you, the whole time we were in handcuffs and shackled by our waist and feet for like 40 hours. Upon returning to the US, they were taken to an immigration detention centre and most of the Somalis on his flight filed motions to reopen their immigration cases to fight deportation.
