Neima Mahdi is a target. She's a transgender woman of color as well as a Somali refugee. Her current "home" is the Carver County Jail in Minneapolis, where ICE has detained her for the past 11 months while they challenge her US residency.
Mahdi, who had been ordered substance abuse treatment by the court, was picked up on an outstanding warrant for a missed court date. Possible outcomes for her case range from permanent residency to deportation.
When she’s not worrying about that, Mahdi thinks about what she wants to do if she’s allowed to remain in the states following her release.
I believe that LGBT people in the Somali community need help. I didn’t get support, and I want to give it.
--Mahdi
Minnesota’s 40,000 Somali Americans are a politically active group, organizing around Trump’s Muslim travel ban, anti-refugee violence, and partnering with BLM in the Twin Cities for racial justice.
There’s so much to focus on that it’s no surprise that LGBTQ activism is a low priority for the largely Muslim community. But when a person belongs to two marginalized communities, like Neima Mahdi does, that same activism can force a person out of view of both.
That invisibility is part of the daily experience of many transgender people. A 2015 survey of U.S. transgender people conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality reported “high levels of mistreatment, harassment, and violence in every aspect of life,” and that transgender people of color, like Mahdi, “experience deeper and broader patterns of discrimination than White” transgender people. Which, means, for example, if you’re a transgender person and a person of color and a refugee from a Muslim country, you might get picked up by ICE for missing a court date, and if no one’s looking for you, you might be forgotten.