Documented Somali Asylum Seeker With No Criminal Record Transferred to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp

Adam Abdullah, a 31-year-old Somali national who arrived in the U.S. as an asylum seeker in 2023 and held a valid work permit, Social Security number and no criminal record, was arrested by federal agents during a traffic stop in St. Paul, Minnesota on December 12, 2025 at the start of 'Operation Metro Surge.' After roughly nine months moving through the Freeborn County Jail (Albert Lea, MN), a facility in Covington, Kentucky, and a Louisiana detention center, Abdullah told MPR News by phone that immigration officials said he would be flown to Somalia via Miami — instead, shackled at the wrists and ankles, he was flown to Guantánamo Bay roughly two weeks before the report (on or about late August 2026) and placed in Camp Six, a wing built two decades ago for terrorism suspects, where he says he is held alongside at least seven other Somali nationals. His attorney says calls from the base are limited to five to ten minutes with no guaranteed confidentiality. DHS did not answer questions about why Abdullah was detained or how many people it currently holds at Guantánamo. The ACLU, which has a pending suit challenging the administration's use of Guantánamo for civil immigration detainees, has an October hearing scheduled in the case.