A Somali man’s deportation battle cracks a window into how ICE is operating in Alaska

Feb. 23—Federal immigration authorities are trying to deport a Somali asylum seeker living in Anchorage, as his attorneys argue he should not be held because his country is on a list of nations the U.S. has determined are too dangerous to return migrants to.

Roble Ahmed Salad, 27, is one of five people detained in Alaska by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement so far this year, amid a nationwide immigration crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump.

The federal attorneys representing immigration authorities in the case say Salad has been ordered deported since 2023 and should be removed from the Unites States imminently.

On Feb. 7, Salad’s attorneys challenged his detention in federal court here, saying the government’s hold of him was illegal because he had complied with all legal requirements and, under the law, can’t be deported.

Salad’s attorney, Margaret Stock, wrote in a court filing that in her 35 years of practicing immigration law, she had “never seen ICE detain a person in this circumstance.”

“The expensive mess that ICE has created is evident from the history of the events in this case,” she wrote.

The attorneys representing the U.S. government in the case declined an interview request.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage said in a statement that it “works alongside partner federal agencies to uphold the nation’s immigration laws.”

The court fight cracks a window into complicated and often opaque immigration proceedings, and reveals the resources the government has dedicated to its efforts to deport Salad, an Anchorage assisted living home caretaker.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has seen publicized raids and mass deportations in cities across the United States, but has been quieter in geographically isolated Alaska. As of mid-February, 41,169 people were in ICE custody nationally, according to NBC News. The administration has repeatedly said it is deporting people with criminal records in the United States, using official social media channels to showcase the arrests of undocumented people charged with serious crimes.

The Daily News obtained the names of all of the people picked up by ICE in the state so far this year through jail records. Only one of the five appeared to have a criminal record in Alaska, a misdemeanor conviction for applying for a driver’s license without citizenship status 15 years ago. The federal immigration agency pays the state $212 per day to house immigration detainees, who while in ICE custody are not charged with a crime but with civil immigration code violations. Detainees are dressed in prison garb, at times shackled and treated as any other inmate at the Anchorage jail.

None of the other four people detained, who include Mexican and Guatemalan nationals, are still being held in Alaska jails or prisons. It’s not clear where they are now.

Roble Ahmed Salad has never been charged with a crime, either in the United States or Somalia, according to court filings.

Salad’s saga is a testament to the shifting landscape of Trump-era immigration enforcement, which has landed the 27-year-old in jail, living in a no-man’s-land of detention between deportation and a life in Anchorage.

According to federal court documents, Salad entered the U.S. through the Mexican border in December 2022 and asked for asylum. Initially, his claim of fearing his home country and government was found to be credible, according to filings by his attorneys. But his asylum claim was later denied at a hearing in which he had no attorney, according to a memo filed in his case by his lawyers. Salad then filed an appeal, which was also denied.

The government ordered that Salad be deported in May 2023. But because Salad was from Somalia, ICE couldn’t send him back due to the “chaotic, violent and dysfunctional conditions” in his home country, his attorney wrote in a court filing. He was detained for as long as immigration detainees can legally be held, then released on an “order of supervision” on Nov. 28, 2023, because “it was not likely he would be deported to Somalia in the reasonably foreseeable future and his continued detention would have been unconstitutional,” the court filing by his attorneys contends.

He was ordered to check in with immigration authorities more than a year later, on Dec. 18, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas, according to filings by government attorneys representing immigration authorities.

In the meantime, Salad moved to Alaska and got work as a caretaker at an assisted living home, according to case filings. He was living in an apartment in Anchorage.

In December 2024, Salad flew back to Texas, draining his savings, for his required Dec. 18 check in with immigration enforcement, according to the filings of his attorney, who entered airline ticket stubs as evidence. But initially the check-in wasn’t recorded by the government. When it was discovered he’d moved to Anchorage, he was considered an “immigration fugitive” at high priority for deportation, according to filings by the government in the case.

His attorneys rejected that notion, writing in court filings that “fugitives do not spend their savings flying 4,000 miles to report in as directed,” to immigration authorities in Texas, in court filings.

In January, with an attorney helping him, Salad applied for temporary protected status, which people from a short list of countries the U.S. considers too dangerous and unstable for resettlement can obtain. Temporary protected status prohibits deportation, and Somalia is included among the countries of origin eligible, until at least 2026.

The list of countries eligible for temporary protected status is getting shorter: Last month, the Trump administration announced that Venezuelans would lose protected status — a move that’s being challenged in court. And on Thursday, the administration cut Haiti from the status.

On Feb. 5, Salad was taken into custody in Anchorage by ICE agents.

On his application paperwork, included as part of his federal case, Roble said he’d never been to jail in the United States. He said he’d been jailed for two months in Somalia for participating in political demonstrations against the government.

Salad was flown from Anchorage to Texas on Feb. 7, and then returned just days later to appear at a federal court hearing this week. The government is expending major resources on Salad’s case, the court filings allege.

“So far ICE has purchased three airline tickets to fly two ICE officers plus Mr. Salad from Anchorage to Texas,” Stock wrote in a court filing. “Then ICE had to purchase three airline tickets to fly two ICE officers plus Mr. Salad back from Texas to Anchorage. And ICE is continuing to incur detention expenses. Yet Mr. Salad is clearly not an ‘immigration fugitive.’ Mr. Salad’s continued detention is thus unlawful, purposeless, and expensive.”

Teresa Coles-Davila is a Texas immigration attorney who said she’s familiar with Salad’s case, though she is not a party to it. To her, it sounds like ICE is “digging in their heels, and they’re doing everything they can for the optics, because now they’ve invested so much time and money in it.”

The court held an evidentiary hearing Wednesday but hasn’t ruled on the legality of Salad’s detention. He remains at the Anchorage jail.

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