ICE transfers Abdullahi Mohamed—then he disappears

ICE transferred – For days in December, Abdullahi Mohamed seemed swallowed by the U.S. immigrant detention system. ICE moved him repeatedly across states faster than his family and lawyer could track, then he was deported—calling from Mogadishu after the last transfers were alr

When Abdullahi Mohamed’s family finally heard from him, it wasn’t from a detention center near home. It was from Mogadishu—minutes after a deportation journey that had already pulled him out of reach for days.

For about five days in December, Mohamed seemingly vanished into the U.S. immigrant detention system. ICE detained him near Portland, Maine, then held him for more than seven weeks in Massachusetts. After that. without warning. ICE began moving him repeatedly across the country—state to state and facility to facility—faster than his family could keep up. The only way they learned where he was came in fragments: an email from his lawyer saying he was in Mississippi; a phone call from the wife of a fellow detainee who said he was in Louisiana; and at one point. a call from Mohamed himself that lasted for about two minutes from an undisclosed airport.

His lawyer laid out what was happening. “They are doing this now more and more—moving people without any notice. ” he wrote to the family in an email. The transfers. the lawyer said. can block people like Mohamed from speaking with an attorney and make it difficult to file legal petitions in the right jurisdiction. while distressing families. “This is cruelty,” the lawyer wrote.

During the final weeks of the case. the family had been trying to get enough time to pursue options in court. In emails to the family in mid-December. Mohamed’s lawyer wrote that ICE had not responded to requests despite weeks of calls and emails. The lawyer also didn’t know whether the government had secured travel documents needed to deport Mohamed. even as the family tried to determine if there was still time to file a habeas petition.

Then ICE started moving him.

In about five days, Mohamed said ICE sent him from Massachusetts to Mississippi to Louisiana and then to Texas. From there. he boarded a deportation flight that crossed several countries in West. Central and East Africa until he landed in Somalia. He told his family he had been beaten and shackled, and endured long stretches without food or water.

“There is no family for me here,” Mohamed told The Marshall Project from Mogadishu. “Nothing. No future.”

Before he vanished, Mohamed had been building a life in the U.S. He came from Somalia in 1999 and applied for asylum. Federal records show that an immigration judge ordered his removal in 2001, and his appeal was dismissed in 2002. He was allowed to stay in the U.S. for years during a period when deportations to Somalia were difficult to carry out. as the country had no functioning central government and remained fractured by civil war. Under an order of supervision. he had to check in regularly with ICE for more than two decades to keep a valid work permit. He paid his taxes and had no criminal record, his family said.

Eventually, he got married and settled in Maine. By fall 2025, he was working as a cab driver. ICE seized him in October when he showed up for a regular check-in.

After several weeks in detention, he was deported.

For his sister, Saynab Mohamed, and her daughter, Eza Nour, each update arrived too late and never from ICE itself. “I think the whole point was to traumatize us,” Nour said, “and leave us with a lasting scar.”

Since Mohamed’s deportation, his wife has been in hiding due to her own immigration status. She spent hours on the phone with Mohamed, trying to figure out what was left of the future they planned together, Saynab Mohamed said. “When your partner for life is gone, you feel kind of lost,” she said.

Mohamed said he has no way to support himself in Somalia, a country he hasn’t lived in for decades. His parents are dead, and Saynab Mohamed is the main reason he built a life in the U.S. To help offset medical and legal costs, his family has set up a GoFundMe.

Mohamed’s case is one of several that a Marshall Project investigation describes as part of a broader pattern: rapid transfers that can make people effectively unreachable when they need lawyers most.

Immigration lawyers say quick, repeated moves not only cause suffering for detainees and families—they undermine due process. Because detainees have limited access to phones while in transit. and because ICE’s detainee locator does not always reflect their real-time location. attorneys say transfers can leave detainees unreachable for hours or even days. Families can lose track of relatives, and lawyers struggle to locate or speak with clients. During those gaps. attorneys say. some detainees have been pressured to sign forms affecting their immigration cases before they can speak with counsel.

“What often happens is that a lawyer or family member will show up to see somebody and be told. ‘That person’s not here. and we don’t know where they are. ’” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández. an Ohio State University law professor who focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law. “Effectively, that person has just disappeared while in the custody of the US government.”.

The pace of transfers has risen, the investigation found. Quick and repeated transfers have become more common in President Donald Trump’s second term. From the final year of the Biden administration to the first year of Trump’s latest term. the number of people transferred five or more times more than tripled. The number of people transferred out of state within 24 hours more than doubled. according to a Marshall Project analysis of ICE detention data obtained by the Deportation Data Project.

ICE disputes the characterization. In an emailed response to written questions. an ICE spokesperson said claims that transfers are being “weaponized” are “categorically false. ” and that “all detainees receive full due process.” The spokesperson said detainees have access to phones for contacting relatives and lawyers. receive a court-approved list of free or low-cost attorneys. and can be “easily” located by relatives. lawyers. and media through ICE’s online locator.

“Despite a historic number of injunctions, DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove these aliens from detention centers to their final destination—home,” the spokesperson said.

The investigation also ties the increased transfers to shifting legal rules around detention. In July 2025, the Department of Homeland Security adopted a new interpretation of a 1996 immigration law. ICE could now treat people who had come into the U.S. without being formally admitted by immigration officials as if they were “arriving aliens” still seeking admission at the border. even if they had lived here for years before being detained. Under that shift, people became ineligible for bond hearings before immigration judges.

In September, the Board of Immigration Appeals made that interpretation binding nationwide, largely cutting off immigration judges’ ability to grant release and allowing ICE to detain people indefinitely.

Lawyers turned to federal court. filing habeas corpus petitions to challenge whether the government had authority to keep their clients detained. But habeas petitions generally must be filed in the federal district where a person is detained. Attorneys said that if someone is moved before a petition is filed. the case has to be restarted in the new location. creating a cycle in which lawyers may not be able to move quickly enough to get a court to review the detention.

Federal courts, the investigation found, are divided over the government’s new detention policy. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers Texas. Louisiana. and Mississippi and is widely regarded as one of the most conservative federal appeals courts—is one of two that have backed the administration on the policy. Those three states are also home to “Detention Alley. ” a cluster of sites that includes 14 out of the 20 largest detention facilities in the country. Many are located in remote. rural areas. and together they have helped make the region a major hub for detention and deportation in the south. In the first year of Trump’s second term. nearly three-quarters of the people ICE deported were last detained in a state covered by the 5th Circuit.

Transfers can carry immediate legal consequences. lawyers said. because where ICE sends someone can determine where a habeas petition is filed and which court hears it. “They’re trying to get as many people to the 5th Circuit as possible. ” said Dan Gividen. a Texas-based immigration lawyer who was deputy chief counsel for ICE from 2016 to 2019. “It’s in no way surprising that ICE. [which] in many ways gets to forum-shop. gets to choose the judge. is sending people to this circuit.”.

Another set of facts from the investigation shows how transfers have accelerated. In Trump’s first year back in office. ICE transferred nearly 41. 700 people to another state within 24 hours. more than double the number the previous year. The agency rapidly transferred more than 1 in 10 people out of state within the first day of being detained.

Cassandra Charles. a senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. said the moves can leave lawyers with little time to respond. “It seems that people are being transferred out of more favorable jurisdictions to less favorable ones,” she said. “That puts the attorneys in positions where they have to file very quickly.” She added. “By the time a lawyer is ready to act. the case may already belong to a different court.”.

“It’s like having the rug pulled out from under your feet,” she said.

In one case described in a federal court opinion issued Feb. 26. Diana Elizabeth Cartagena Hueso and her husband were detained in Elizabeth. New Jersey. on January 27 while on their way to a doctor’s appointment. Hueso is a 29-year-old citizen of El Salvador who passed a 2016 credible fear interview. a screening that allowed her to continue pursuing protection in the U.S. Her lawyer, Noemi Simbron, said she filed an asylum application in 2017.

Simbron told the investigation that because ICE moves people quickly, she committed to filing a habeas petition within 24 hours. She filed the petition from a plane on Feb. 13.

Four days later. a federal judge in New Jersey ordered the government to give Hueso a bond hearing within 10 days. and barred ICE from transferring her out of state. But court records show ICE transferred her to Oklahoma the day before the judge’s order. On Feb. 17, the same day the court said she could not be moved, she was transferred again, this time to Texas. Two days later, ICE sent her to Oklahoma again. Simbron said Hueso was moved two more times within Texas after that. for a total of five transfers before she was finally released. She was detained for about a month.

In the ruling. the judge criticized the government’s handling of Hueso’s transfers. noting that officials never clarified why she had been “transferred three times in two days.” Her case. the judge wrote. reflected a broader pattern of immigrants being “shifted repeatedly around the country without warning or explanation.” The government’s conduct “can now only be deemed intentional. ” the judge concluded.

During Hueso’s transfers, Simbron said her lawyer and family had little idea where Hueso was. She said she refreshed the detainee locator, called the U.S. attorney’s office, and waited for a call from Hueso. She said at one point Hueso managed a single three-minute phone call to her family to say she had been moved. But Simbron said she did not get the chance to speak with Hueso during these transfers.

Hueso declined to speak with the Marshall Project because her immigration case remains active. Simbron spoke on her behalf, describing that after her release, Hueso said the repeated shuffling caused fear and frustration. Hueso had known about the judge’s order and kept bringing it up to officers. who told her she was “going home. ” Simbron said. At first, Simbron said, she thought officers meant New Jersey. Eventually, she realized they meant El Salvador.

“It was like mind games and gaslighting her,” Simbron said.

For another example, the investigation describes an Oregon case last fall involving farmworkers detained in and near Woodburn. Attorney Kelsey Provo wrote in a federal court declaration that she and colleagues raced to advise detainees because. from prior experience. they knew that “ICE transfers people out of the facility quickly.” Provo added that “both prior to and after transfer. ICE pressures people to sign documents waiving important rights.”.

One detainee was identified in court records as M-J-M-A. a 45-year-old Mexican citizen arrested on October 30 on her way to work. The government said she entered the country legally in January 2025 and overstayed her visa. In her declaration, she wrote that she feared returning to Mexico and intended to apply for asylum.

Provo and her colleague met her at noon after waiting about an hour at the Portland ICE facility. Provo said M-J-M-A had already been forced by an ICE officer to sign a document she didn’t understand. Provo’s account says the officer told her that if she didn’t agree to be removed voluntarily. “it would take a very long time for [her] to leave.”.

Provo said the document was in Spanish. It is a routine form that detainees and those undergoing immigration proceedings are asked to fill out. It lays out a detainee’s rights and asks them to choose how they want their case to proceed. Provo said M-J-M-A selected the option on the form that waived her right to an immigration court hearing and requested that she return to her home country as soon as possible.

Provo said a person has a right to consult a lawyer when answering the questions on the form “because they are making important decisions about the future of their rights and what rights they want to exercise and what rights they want to give up.”

Weeks later. at an evidentiary hearing. Provo said the ICE officer who had presented the document “was unable to translate lines from the form that he claimed to have discussed with and explained” to M-J-M-A. The judge wrote that the officer’s testimony raised “significant doubts about the quality and depth of communications” with M-J-M-A “as she considered her due process rights and made vital decisions. ” according to the judge’s order.

Provo said when she and her colleague finally met with M-J-M-A. they had about 10 minutes before an officer ended the meeting. Shortly after, Provo said, ICE officers shackled M-J-M-A and loaded her onto a bus headed to Tacoma, Washington. Nearly a full day would pass before she appeared in the detainee locator. and the earliest her lawyers could meet with her was about two days later.

Provo said she became concerned that, without legal advice, M-J-M-A might sign documents affecting her case. Hellgren said that a habeas petition filed eight minutes before she was moved kept the case in federal court in Oregon. Hellgren said it meant M-J-M-A could be released and that it was still possible for a court to scrutinize what had happened.

Without that intervention, Hellgren said, what happened may have stayed hidden.

In Mohamed’s case. the transfers came so quickly that the narrow options his lawyer and family were pursuing never had the chance to play out. They were no longer trying to reopen the case involving his old removal order. his lawyer said in emails. but to get him released long enough for him to get his affairs in order before leaving the country. In mid-December emails, his lawyer said ICE had not responded to requests despite weeks of calls and emails. Even as the family tried to determine whether they still had time to file a habeas petition. Mohamed’s whereabouts went dark.

After his removal. his family drove to retrieve his car—first flying to Maine and then driving it back to North Carolina. where they live. Nour said they had to sort out the title and the rest of his belongings. On the drive, Nour said they called Mohamed so he could guide them through roads from memory.

“He’s American, he’s telling us the roads,” Nour said. “He knows it better than we do.”

The administration has rules for transfers on paper, the investigation reports. According to ICE’s 2025 national detention standards, ICE considers whether a detainee is represented before the immigration court. ICE will consider alternatives to transfer, especially if the lawyer is nearby and court proceedings are underway. The standards say detainees are not told about a transfer until just before they leave the facility. when ICE notifies them they are being moved to another facility in the U.S. and not being deported. The standards say detainees are given the new facility’s contact information in writing. and that ICE will contact the attorney of record.

Attorneys say the operational reality is different and remains opaque. Hellgren said, “The rules are absolutely not clear.” She said she and other attorneys “don’t even know what all their own policies are because of the lack of transparency here.”

During litigation last year. ICE produced a limited set of documents. including a three-page “detainee transfer checklist” used when officers move someone outside the “area of responsibility. ” meaning the geographic region overseen by a local field office. The checklist directs officers to document whether the detainee has an attorney of record in that region. immediate family ties. or a pending court case. If any apply, a senior official must approve the transfer. The form also says attorneys are to be notified of a transfer “as soon as practicable” and no later than 24 hours after it happens.

Hellgren said she saw no evidence those factors were being considered. “The speed of transfers is so extreme,” she said, “it’s hard to understand how they could be considering these factors.”

In late March. a federal judge in Minnesota extended an order barring ICE from transferring people out of state during the first 72 hours of detention. aimed at stopping rapid transfers from cutting detainees off from their lawyers. The order required ICE to ensure that the locator stays updated. and required ICE to provide free. private phone access to detainees while informing them where they would be transferred.

Attorneys say broader reforms could follow the same logic. requiring ICE to give people notice of available legal help as soon as they’re detained. provide time and private space to meet with lawyers. provide interpretation when needed. and give access to relevant arrest and detention paperwork before transfers.

For Mohamed’s family, those gaps weren’t theoretical. They were the difference between a lawyer getting to a court in time and a detainee being moved until the system no longer tells you where he is.

After that, the updates arrive in pieces—too late for one set of doors to open, and only in the form of a phone call from thousands of miles away.

ICE Abdullahi Mohamed immigration detention deportation transfers due process habeas corpus Mohamed case Maine Massachusetts Mississippi Louisiana Texas Board of Immigration Appeals 5th Circuit Deportation Data Project