Mahad Mohamud is slowly readjusting to the heat, chaos and tension of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, after being deported from the US city of Minneapolis last month just as winter was closing in there. BBC World Reports
Somalis know the 36-year-old as Garyaqaan – a word that can be translated as “judge”.
This is the name he uses on TikTok, where he attracted almost half a million followers while he was abroad. Fans praised Mahad for his defence of his clan’s interests – part of Somalia’s lucrative TikTok roasting sub-culture.
But to those running the White House-linked “Rapid Response 47″X account, Mahad was a “criminal illegal scumbag”. In an October post it accused him of being “involved in the kidnapping of French officials” from a hotel in the Somali capital.
Mahad has denied the allegation, saying that he was not in Mogadishu at the time. He was never convicted and the case was dropped.
He says his detention by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency was triggered after a rival TikToker leaked his address.
“ICE told me they had two cases against me – one was entering the country illegally and the kidnapping of a French official.”
Mahad said the kidnapping case was handled by the FBI and after questioning, they cleared him.
But that didn’t save him from being deported.
His journey from Somalia to the US started more than a decade ago and first took him to South Africa, where he lived until 2021. But he says he was assaulted by armed men in a xenophobic attack.
He then went to Brazil and made his way north, eventually crossing into the US, without documentation, through the Mexican border.
“When I jumped the fence from Mexico, I was arrested and detained for a month,” Mahad says.
“I was later released with a work permit because my asylum case was active.”
He then made his way to Minneapolis. “I used to work as an Uber driver. I was happy to finally be in the land of dreams. I hoped they would accept me.”
His TikTok career also took off which gave him a steady income as fans sent him gifts as they watched his live streams. It also led to a threat on his life from the Somalia-based Islamist militant group al-Shabab because of his defence of the government.
Part of his asylum case in the US was based on that threat.
Mahad describes in vivid detail the early May morning when immigration agents arrested him this year.
Shortly after he had eaten breakfast, he went to his car thinking he was about to begin another day of Uber driving.
“Boom, they came for me,” he says.
According to Mahad, he was taken on a 30-minute drive to the ICE headquarters serving Minneapolis and its twin city of St Paul, before being transferred on a six-hour journey to Kandiyohi County Jail Prison in Willmar, Minnesota, where he says he spent six months in detention.
He tells the BBC that three of those months were spent waiting for a decision on his asylum case, and the remaining three awaiting deportation. The authorities denied his asylum claim as they rejected the idea that he would be in danger in Somalia.
Mahad says there were brief periods when he was transferred to Arizona, from where deportation fights leave, but he was told on each occasion that logistical arrangements were not ready.
On one of these trips, he was part of a group of 39 detainees, including nationals of Kenya, Ethiopia and Eritrea, in a holding area for people waiting to board deportation flights.
Finally, when it came to his own departure, Mahad says he was put in a tight restraining jacket and travelled on a small plane with seven other deportees and some guards.
CREDIT: BBC World.
