Federal agents pulled over Adam Abdullah's vehicle in St. Paul on December 12, 2025, and within months the 31-year-old Somali man, who was living legally in the Twin Cities, found himself shackled on a flight to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He had no criminal record, showed up for every ICE check-in, and had obtained both a work permit and a Social Security number. Authorities never explained why they targeted him.
Abdullah's case, first detailed by MPR News, traces a path that has become disturbingly familiar for immigrants swept up in the Twin Cities. The outlet reports that federal agents identified themselves as immigration authorities, said they did not need a warrant, and requested his work permit before taking him into custody. He worked as an auto mechanic and had picked up two parking tickets in early 2025 for failing to move his vehicle during snow emergencies, according to Minnesota court records cited in the same report.
From Freeborn County to a Cuban Military Prison
Abdullah, who came to the United States as an asylum seeker in 2023, was moved from the Freeborn County Jail in Albert Lea before being transferred to a detention center in Covington, Kentucky, and eventually flown out of the country. During those hours-long flights he was shackled, and immigration officials told him he would ultimately be returned to Somalia by way of Miami, though he was never actually sent there. Officials separately told him the flight would make a stop in Cuba for refueling.
That stop turned into a stay of nearly two weeks and counting at Camp 6, a medium-security military prison originally built to hold foreign terrorism suspects, according to the Center for Victims of Torture. Human rights groups and health workers have described serious or cruel conditions there. Abdullah is among eight people from Somalia now held at the base, and he has said detainees get only a few hours together during the day, with limited opportunities for exercise, though he can speak with other detainees.
PBS reports that the United States previously held Haitian asylum seekers at Guantánamo Bay beginning in the early 1990s. A Congressional Research Service report places the current debate in the context of earlier Haitian refugee and Cuban migrant crises at Guantánamo Bay in the early 1990s.
An Attorney Fights for a Confidential Line
His attorney, Marc Prokosch, said Abdullah is his first client held at Guantánamo Bay, and getting him legal help has proven difficult. Phone-call opportunities are limited, and calls between attorneys and clients are capped at five to 10 minutes and may not be confidential, forcing lawyers to communicate with clients through conversations that could be monitored.
That access problem sits at the heart of a federal lawsuit the ACLU filed in Washington, D.C. against the Trump administration over its detention of immigrants at Guantánamo Bay. A Washington judge has allowed the suit, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center v. Noem, to proceed and set a hearing for October 14, according to the ACLU. Lee Gelernt, an attorney on the case, said the government lacks legal authority to detain immigrants overseas and argued that people are being held at Guantánamo for weeks under horrible conditions.
A Policy Born From an Executive Order
The government began sending immigration detainees to Guantánamo under a presidential memorandum from President Donald Trump in early 2025, according to Yumna Rizvi, a policy analyst with the Center for Victims of Torture. Rizvi said the administration is seeking to associate immigration with terrorism. The White House memorandum, signed January 29, 2025, directed the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to expand the base's Migrant Operations Center to full capacity to detain high-priority noncitizens, citing border security and the dismantling of criminal cartels. The first flight under that policy left Texas on February 4, 2025, carrying 10 Venezuelan men federal officials said were affiliated with the Tren de Aragua gang, according to the Immigration Policy Tracking Project.
That early framing, reserving Guantánamo for violent noncitizens, has not matched what has unfolded since. Internal federal documents reviewed by CBS News indicated that fewer than 900 immigration detainees had been transferred to the base, while only six were actually being held there as of May 11. Department of Defense figures given to Congress in April put the military's cost for the effort at $73 million, up from an earlier estimate of $40 million, and internal records show the base's actual immigration detention capacity tops out around 400 beds, far short of the 30,000-bed facility the White House had publicly floated. According to ICE's FY 2024 Annual Report, 81,312 of 113,431 arrests—71.7%—involved noncitizens with criminal convictions or pending charges.
The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions about why Abdullah was arrested or how many detainees the agency currently holds at Guantánamo Bay, per MPR News. DHS has said a recent flight to the base included some of the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, though Abdullah's attorney and advocates point to his clean record as evidence the dragnet reaches well beyond that description.
ICE's FY 2024 Annual Report also addresses detention-facility compliance.
A Community Already on Edge
More than 83,000 people of Somali descent live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, the largest Somali diaspora community in the country, with large-scale arrivals dating to the early 1990s, per FOX 9. Several Somali detainees have been arrested in the Twin Cities, and MPR News has also reported on Minnesota's agreements with ICE.
The strain of the mission has also reached the federal government's own medical staff. Some Public Health Service officers have resigned or quit over detention assignments, and care has reportedly been delayed. For Abdullah, who was confined at Camp 6, a medium-security military prison at Guantánamo Bay, after being transferred from U.S. immigration detention, the outcome of the ACLU's lawsuit and the October hearing may determine how much longer he waits, and whether he ever gets an unmonitored call with his own attorney.
