When Aliya Rahman’s lawyers approached her about filing a complaint with the civil rights office of the Department of Homeland Security, she almost laughed in their faces.

“It’s hard to imagine that sending a letter to DHS to ask them to respect our civil rights will do anything,” said Rahman, a disabled US citizen who was dragged from her car and detained by DHS agents during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Today, Rahman, who also has an ongoing civil tort claim against DHS, filed that complaint anyway.

On January 13, ICE agents detained Rahman as she tried to drive to a doctor’s appointment, punching out the window of her car and carrying her by her arms and legs, ignoring her requests for mobility and communication aids, which Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act is meant to guarantee. Eventually, the pain caused her to black out in her cell. Rahman contends that the agents’ aggressive treatment violated her civil rights as a disabled person.

“I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms, and prodded forward in leg irons by an agent saying ‘Walk! You can do it. Walk.’”

“We request that DHS take corrective action to not only redress these violations, but also to ensure all individuals with disabilities who interact with DHS officers are treated with dignity and respect,” Rahman’s lawyers wrote in their complaint.

Rahman........

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