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Federal immigration authorities have sent a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, to Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, despite the man having no criminal record and being a legal resident of the U.S.

Adam Abdullah, 31, is an auto mechanic who was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. seeking asylum in 2023. He has regularly checked in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since he began living in Minnesota, and has no criminal history.

ICE officials stopped Abdullah’s vehicle on December 12, 2025, as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge.” In a brief interview with Minnesota Public Radio this week, Abdullah said that the agents were not forthcoming about why he was being pulled over, and seemed uninterested in respecting his rights.

“When they come to me, and I ask them why you pulled me over, they say, ‘We are immigration, so give me your work permit,'” Abdullah recounted. “And I asked them, ‘Do you have a warrant, and what’s the reason to pull me over?’ And they say, ‘We don’t need a warrant; we are immigration, and we know you are Adam Abdullah.'”

Abdullah indicated that he still hasn’t been given an explanation for why he was targeted. After being detained, he spent the next nine months moving between immigrant jails across the country — first in Albert Lea, Minnesota,........

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