WASHINGTON ― Aliya Rahman, the Minneapolis resident whose image went viral earlier this year when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violently pulled her out of her car as she was heading to a doctor’s appointment, on Tuesday sued the U.S. government for abuse and wrongful detainment.
Her lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, lays out eight counts against the federal government, including assault, battery, false arrest and false imprisonment, negligent supervision, and negligence.
Rahman, a Bangladeshi American software engineer who is autistic and has physical disabilities, was en route to a medical appointment on Jan. 13 when federal immigration enforcement officers surrounded her car, smashed in her window, dragged her out and locked her up at a federal detention center for hours, where she alleges she experienced severe medical neglect and violence at the hands of ICE officers, requiring hospitalization.
An eyewitness captured the initial incident on film, and footage of Rahman’s horrific encounter with ICE went viral. She later testified before Congress about the violence she endured that day that she believes nearly killed her.
“I am one of many who have been impacted by this government’s vile abuse of power,” Rahman said in a Tuesday statement. “And while this lawsuit stems from what happened in January, the terror did not start there and has not stopped.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson acknowledged the lawsuit: “We are aware of the lawsuit and look forward to vigorously defending ourselves in court.”
Here’s a copy of Rahman’s lawsuit, obtained by HuffPost:
Rahman has spent months trying to hold ICE accountable for the violence its agents inflicted on her. In June, she filed a federal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. In April, she filed a Federal Tort Claims Act claim alleging unlawful use of force and detention by federal agents.
That action was essentially an administrative complaint, but was the first step necessary for bringing Tuesday’s lawsuit against the federal government.
Rahman, whom HuffPost has interviewed multiple times this year, sees herself in part as a proxy for other Minnesotans who endured violence amid the Trump’s administration’s Operation Metro Surge this year, when thousands of ICE agents flooded the state with the stated goal of rooting out undocumented immigrants who were criminals.
Instead, federal agents spent months nabbing Black and brown people off the streets, regardless of their citizenship status, and waging a terror campaign on immigrant communities. They drove families into hiding, circled elementary schools looking for immigrant children, and fatally shot two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Rahman, who is being represented by the MacArthur Justice Center and the law firm Friedman Gilbert + Gerhardstein, still doesn’t know the names of the ICE agents who she says assaulted her.
During a Tuesday press conference, MacArthur Justice Center senior counsel Jessica Gingold scoffed at the idea that ICE agents can simply claim immunity from any legal action that may be brought against them related to their conduct in Minnesota.
That’s precisely what DHS claimed they did have, on the same day agents dragged Rahman from her car.
“The idea that they have absolute immunity is just patently false,” Gingold said. “Through our lawsuit, we have causes of action. We have laid out the claim in each of the causes of action, and we can go to court. There’s no immunity defense that they just automatically have.”
Asked if part of the goal of their lawsuit is to identify the agents who violently arrested Rahman, her attorney said of course.
“We will find the names,” said Gingold. “We have their pictures…. We have a right to depose them. We have a right to get their records to understand who these individuals were who heard Aliya, frustrated and confused, and reacted with such violence.”