Incidents of ICE violence are increasing day by day across different neighborhoods in the United States. Amid the pressurized crackdown on illegal immigrants in the country, the federal agents are also making headlines for their extremely brutal use of force and violence while screening and detaining individuals.
While the Department of Homeland Security is already garnering much scrutiny over the same, an incident of a similar measure happened yet again.
Nasra Ahmed, a 23-year-old St Paul resident, recently shared her harrowing detention experience while speaking to The St. Paul Pioneer Press. The woman reportedly left her apartment to pick up medication when she got pulled over in an unannounced ICE raid.
The Somali-American native has no criminal history whatsoever, yet was taken into custody for two days, where she became a victim of physical violence. Her detention marks the next controversial move by ICE in Minnesota, after the already scandalous case of Renee Nicole Good’s fatal shooting at the hands of an agent.
Nasra was born in Minnesota to her Somali-American parents. She lives in a densely populated neighborhood predominated by people of the same descent in St Paul. Her horrific detention video was captured on camera by a witness passing by and was later shared on social media.
The footage recorded the exact moment that led to her capture. The woman merely fell in the middle of an ongoing ICE raid involving two Somali-American men.
As they ran past her in an open parking lot, the agents chasing them came close to Ahmed and suddenly surrounded her instead.
They demanded to see her verification ID, and she followed protocol as requested. But what came as an unexpected move was when the agents violently shoved her to the ground for no reason, despite her cooperation.
Nasra Ahmed was arrested while ICE was chasing 2 men. She showed her ID. An ICE agent called her a racial slur & another told her they were “making America great again.” A dozen masked agents can be seen surrounding her, forcing her to the ground and then into a car. https://t.co/T1Yt7f6dFh pic.twitter.com/v75AOoA5Rd
— Fly Sistah 🪷 (@Fly_Sistah) January 18, 2026
Ahmed was then arrested and put inside a vehicle, before she was put in ICE custody for two days. She was denied having any connection with the outside world during the time that she was kept in detention.
Her father, Mohammed, upon knowing about the arrest, dialed up the office of U.S. Representative Samakab Hussein (D-Minn.) of St. Paul, in order to help his daughter out of detention. In the meantime, what the woman faced in custody was extremely harrowing.
She was shifted back and forth between different facilities and finally released on Friday without any charges. After getting out, Nasra Ahmed opened up about the challenges she faced inside. She mentioned suffering a broken skin and bruising on one side of her face after she got shoved inside the ICE agents’ car.
Nasra also suffered from a stress-induced seizure at the time of her detainment and was taken to the hospital with arm and leg restraints. There she received an MRI and had to stay overnight for treatment.
Nasra Ahmed, 23, was walking through the parking lot of her aunt’s St. Paul apartment complex when she found herself surrounded by a dozen agents. Ahmed, born in the USA, says she showed them her I.D. She was forcefully detained and jailed anyway for more than two days.… pic.twitter.com/nRgRFQBbPX
— Frederick Melo, Reporter/Axolotl (@FrederickMelo) January 18, 2026
Sharing more information, Ahmed added, “The way they treated me during that episode, while I was transported, I was cuffed from my hands to my legs. I was covered in chains. They had a padlock on me. … While I was in the hospital, if I needed to go to the restroom or I needed to get up, they had chains on me like Hannibal Lecter, pretty much.”
More shockingly, the 23-year-old recalled how the dozens of masked agents around her used racial slurs to abuse her during the arrest. A few of them even boasted about ‘Making America Great Again’ at the time of the ordeal.
Speaking to St Paul Pioneer Press, she revealed, “They used a lot of force to arrest me. They pinned me. I have a bruise on my head. I’ve been having head pain since that incident. My whole body is aching. … I was crying. I was screaming.”
