U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained Abdul Dahir Ibrahim, a Somali national living in the United States without legal status who has been convicted of fraud and has appeared in photos with several prominent Minnesota politicians, including Gov. Tim Walz, the former Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Ibrahim has been under a final order of removal since 2004, and courts have rejected all of his appeals.
According to a Department of Justice document reviewed by Fox News Digital, Ibrahim has a criminal history that includes asylum and welfare fraud convictions in Canada before he entered the United States.
On Jan. 23, 2002, he was convicted in Dakota County District Court of providing false information to police and driving without a valid license. He was fined and sentenced to one year of probation. Records show he has also received 12 traffic or parking citations in the U.S.
Although Ibrahim is unmarried, he previously claimed that his sister was his wife and that her children were their children, a story later determined to be false, according to the same document.
ICE says Ibrahim entered the United States in New York in 1995 after being deported from Canada.
On April 3, 2004, an immigration judge ordered Ibrahim removed from the country, highlighting what was described as extensive fraud linked to him. His appeals were denied, and in 2006 a federal circuit court upheld the immigration court’s decision.
Despite this, Ibrahim was granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly a decade. He also has a pending TPS application filed in 2023 that has yet to be adjudicated.
Over the years, Ibrahim has been photographed with several high-profile Minnesota Democrats, including Walz; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman; and state Sen. Omar Fateh, who recently ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Minneapolis.
Ibrahim has appeared in photos with Walz at least twice, and both Osman and Fateh wrote letters of recommendation for Ibrahim during his immigration proceedings.
President Donald Trump has recently rolled out a series of new measures targeting alleged fraud schemes in Minnesota, which he has described as a “hub of money laundering activity.” He has cited those concerns as a key reason for ending deportation protections for hundreds of Somali migrants.
Senior administration officials this week announced additional investigations, including a new Treasury Department probe into allegations that taxpayer funds were diverted to the terrorist group al-Shabaab, according to Secretary Scott Bessent.
Last month, Trump pointed to fraud as the justification for terminating the Temporary Protected Status designation for thousands of Somali migrants living in Minnesota, writing on Truth Social that they should “go back to where they came from.”
City leaders in Minneapolis are now preparing for an increased presence of ICE agents after the agency disclosed plans for a new enforcement operation in the state.
Walz, who ran against Trump in 2024 as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, has pushed back on Trump’s comments about Minnesota’s Somali community. He has said that “Donald Trump’s hateful words don’t stand in Minnesota” and argued that “demonizing an entire group of people just by their race and their ethnicity … is something I was hoping we’d never have to see.”
He has also praised the Somali community in Minnesota as “a group of people who contribute to the vitality, economic culture of this state.”
