{"id":708,"date":"2026-06-23T18:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2026-06-23T18:38:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:38:27","slug":"dhs-still-has-a-civil-rights-team-aliya-rahman-is-testing-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=708","title":{"rendered":"DHS Still Has a Civil Rights Team. Aliya Rahman Is Testing It."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Aliya<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

When Aliya Rahman\u2019s <\/span>lawyers approached her about filing a complaint with the civil rights office of the Department of Homeland Security, she almost laughed in their faces.<\/p>

Read more Did Trump Get Special Access to Retatrutide?<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine that sending a letter to DHS to ask them to respect our civil rights will do anything,\u201d said Rahman, a disabled US citizen who was dragged from her car and detained by DHS agents during Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis. Today, Rahman, who also has an ongoing civil tort claim against DHS, filed that complaint anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On January 13, ICE agents detained Rahman as she tried to drive to a doctor\u2019s appointment, punching out the window of her car and carrying her by her arms and legs, ignoring her requests for mobility and communication aids, which Section 504 of the federal Rehabilitation Act is meant to guarantee. Eventually, the pain caused her to black out in her cell. Rahman contends that the agents\u2019 aggressive treatment violated her civil rights as a disabled person.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe request that DHS take corrective action to not only redress these violations, but also to ensure all individuals with disabilities who interact with DHS officers are treated with dignity and respect,\u201d Rahman\u2019s lawyers wrote in their complaint.<\/p>\n

Rahman described how ICE agents harmed her in organized by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.): \u201c<\/strong>Shooting pain went through my head, neck, and wrists when I hit the ground and people leaned on my back\u2026I was carried face down through the street by my cuffed arms and legs while yelling that I had a brain injury,\u201d Rahman said:<\/p>\n

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\u201cAgents repeatedly had to stop and ask how to do tasks. I received no medical screening, phone call, or access to a lawyer. I was denied a communication navigator when my speech began to slur. Agents laughed as I tried to immobilize my own neck. I asked for my cane and was told no, pulled up by my arms, and prodded forward in leg irons by an agent saying \u201cWalk! You can do it. Walk.\u201d Agents did not know if the facility had a wheelchair. When I was finally placed in one to be taken to interrogation, an agent taunted: \u201cYou were driving right? So your legs do work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Section 504 prohibits discrimination against disabled people in programs and organizations that receive federal funding, which includes ICE. But Rahman\u2019s experience, her lawyers said, was \u201cnot an aberration.\u201d In , a Border Patrol officer allegedly took away the crutch of a child they apprehended and didn\u2019t provide an alternative. Between 2019 and 2023, at least seven people with mental health disabilities were placed in solitary confinement in ICE custody. And in 2025, a Deaf DACA recipient was reportedly denied access to an American Sign Language interpreter for weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DHS\u2019 Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), an internal body meant to investigate exactly these types of abuses, was gutted by then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March 2025, reducing its workforce from over 150 full-time federal employees to fewer than 40 a year later, nearly all of whom are contractors. <\/p>

Read more Downballot Democrats Are Smashing Recruitment Records<\/a><\/p>\n

DHS spokespeople did not provide current employment figures when asked, but stated that all of the office\u2019s \u201cAll of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties\u2019 \u201clegally required functions continue to be performed, but in an efficient and cost-effective manner and without hindering the Department\u2019s mission of securing the homeland,\u201d further alleging that \u201cthese offices obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS\u2019s mission. Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often functioned as internal adversaries.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before CRCL was functionally dismantled, a complaint like Rahman\u2019s would be read by its staffers, who would then issue recommendations. Now, though, she doesn\u2019t necessarily expect that it will be read at all. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to hear from these folks,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cTypically, what they do is put out social media content when they\u2019re mad at me.\u201d (DHS has issued posts implying that Rahman\u2019s conduct was criminal.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still rocking my supervillain braces, my shoulders aren\u2019t healed yet,\u201d Rahman told me June 22, showing off her shoulder support gear. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to put my body back together.\u201d <\/p>\n

Thanks to her injuries, Rahman can only leave the house two or three days per week, she said. But as she heals, she\u2019s become an advocate for others who have been detained or harmed by ICE, particularly those who are also disabled, many of whom don\u2019t have the privileges she does: that she is a citizen, that she has savings, that she speaks English and has access to lawyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them also had disabilities or chronic illnesses that were impacted by how they were handled, or they developed them afterwards,\u201d Rahman said, and have learned\u2014like her\u2014that disclosing their disabilities can draw officers\u2019 ridicule rather than accommodation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will say things like, you\u2019re not disabled, you wear eyeliner,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cThe guy inside [Whipple Detention Center] was like, \u2018Your legs work, you were driving, right?\u2019\u201d Online, she sees families with autistic kids saying that they are terrified of any interaction with law enforcement. She doesn\u2019t blame them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI experienced people doubling down on violence when I raised that I was disabled, and that is not a society we can live in,\u201d Rahman said. <\/p>

Read more A Mother Jones Investigation Helped Spur a New Alaska Law Protecting Vulnerable Kids<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The disabled US citizen was violently jailed by ICE agents\u2014so she\u2019s going to their \u201cinternal adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nDHS Still Has a Civil Rights Team. Aliya Rahman Is Testing It. - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=708\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DHS Still Has a Civil Rights Team. 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