100 signatures reached
To: ICE San Antonio Field Office Director, Dan Bible, Immigration Customs and Enforcement
#FREESADAT: Demand the release of a Gay Black Asylum Seeker from Detention
We urgently petition the ICE San Antonio Field Office Director Dan Bible to stop the deportation of Sadat Ibrahim and release him from detention. Sadat has remained in detention for over 750 days, he can work on his appeal for asylum from outside of detention, so why is he still detained? As the days and years go by Sadat’s despair has grown and the urgency of his release has too.
Why is this important?
Sadat Ibrahim is a young gay man from Ghana where homosexuality is a crime punishable by three years in prison. Sadat had been brutally attacked by a homophobic vigilante gang back in Ghana, the ‘Safety Empire’, that hunts down, beats up and kills gay people. Fearing for his life, he planned a long escape route, and finally made it to the Mexican/U.S. border and presented himself at the border requesting asylum. An asylum officer agreed that Sadat had a credible fear of persecution. His family sent videos supporting his claim to Sadat in detention in Georgia, but not only did the officers in the detention center not give Sadat this critical evidence, they never even told Sadat that the evidence had arrived. Without the corroborating evidence, the judge denied Sadat asylum.
Sadat faces deportation back to the same situation that may see him incarcerated, attacked and/or murdered for being gay, as his asylum claim was denied. Had Sadat been able to share the video evidence that ICE withheld from him until after the hearing, we believe the judge should have granted asylum to Sadat, and likely would have done so.
Sadat’s legal team has managed to win him a temporary stay of removal so why is he still being detained?