He was an Uber driver in the US. Now he’s scared of jihadists in Somalia

Mahad Mohamud is slowly trying to get used to the heat, chaos and tension of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, after he was deported from Minneapolis, USA, last month as winter approaches.

Somalis know the 36-year-old as Garyaqaan, which can be translated as “judge”.

This is the name he uses on TikTok, where he has amassed nearly half a million followers while abroad. Fans praised Mahad for defending the interests of his clan, which is part of Somalia lucrative TikTok roasting subculture.

But to those who run the White House-affiliated “Rapid Response 47” According to the X account, Mahad was a “criminal, illegal scumbag”. A post published in October accused him of being “involved in the kidnapping of French officials” from a hotel in Somalia’s capital.

Mahad denied the claim, saying he was not in Mogadishu at the time. He was never convicted and the case was dropped.

He said his detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was triggered after a rival TikToker leaked his address.

“ICE said they had two cases against me, one for illegal entry into the country and the kidnapping of a French official.”

Mahad said the kidnapping case was handled by the FBI and they cleared him after questioning.

But this did not save him from deportation.

His journey from Somalia to the United States began more than a decade ago and first took him to South Africa, where he will live until 2021. But he says he was attacked by gunmen in a xenophobic attack.

He then traveled to Brazil and moved north, eventually crossing the Mexican border into the United States without any documentation.

“When I jumped the fence from Mexico, I was arrested and detained for a month,” says Mahad.

“I was later released with a work permit because my asylum case was active.”

He then set off for Minneapolis. “I used to work as an Uber driver. I was happy to finally come to the land of dreams. I was hoping they would accept me.”

Her TikTok career also took off as fans sent her gifts while watching her live streams, providing her with a steady income. This also led the Somali-based Islamist militant group Al Shabaab to threaten him with death for defending the government.

Part of his asylum case in the US was based on this threat.

Mahad describes in vivid detail the early morning hours of May this year when immigration agents arrested him.

Shortly after eating breakfast, he went to his car, thinking he was about to start another Uber ride.

“Boom, they came for me,” he says.

According to Mahad, he was taken a 30-minute drive to ICE headquarters serving Minneapolis and its twin city of St. Paul, then transferred on a six-hour drive to the Kandiyohi County Jail in Willmar, Minnesota, where he said he was detained for six months.

He told the BBC that he spent three of those months waiting for the decision on his asylum case and the remaining three months waiting to be deported. Authorities also rejected his asylum request because they rejected the idea that he would be in danger in Somalia.

Mahad said there were brief periods when he was transferred to Arizona, where deportation battles ended, but each time he was told logistical arrangements were not ready.

On one of those trips, he was part of a group of 39 detainees, including Kenyan, Ethiopian and Eritrean citizens, at a holding area where people awaiting deportation flights were held.

When it finally came time for his own departure, Mahad said he was made to wear a tight protective jacket and traveled on a small plane with seven other exiles and some guards.

The journey took them first to Costa Rica in Central America, then to Senegal in West Africa, and then to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. There, Mahad says, he was stripped of his protective jacket, handcuffed and put on another plane to Mogadishu.

Having waited three months to be deported, Mahad had already resigned himself to his fate and was not very emotional when he returned.

After ten years, he finally had his three children. “I wouldn’t trade this moment for anything… I haven’t seen them for 10 years,” says Mahad.

However, he still prefers to be in the United States because he fears for his life after receiving messages containing death threats from Al Shabaab.

He takes extra security precautions when he is out and about and lives in a well-guarded home, but he did not want to go into further detail or share the content of the threats for security reasons.

Upon his return, Mahad was welcomed by many from his clan, including local politicians, for his TikTok profile. He recognizes that because of his presence on social media, he may have opportunities that are not available to other Somalis who have been deported or threatened with deportation from the United States.

Last month, President Donald Trump said he would end temporary protected status, which is supposed to prevent people from being deported if their countries are unsafe.

He upped the ante earlier this month when he said he didn’t want Somali immigrants in the United States, telling reporters they “should go back to where they came from” and that “their country is not good for some reason.”

Somalia has not had a central government controlling the entire country since the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991. People had to endure years of near-anarchy and insecurity; Even now, although a government is in place in Mogadishu, Islamist militants still dominate much of the country and occasionally launch attacks in the capital.

Trump’s comments came after he was questioned about massive fraud in the state of Minnesota’s welfare program.

Dozens of people have been charged in a scheme that federal prosecutors say involved a charity fraudulently billing the state government for meals for children during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A number of Somali immigrants were allegedly involved in this alleged scheme.

Following the president’s comments about Somalis, videos spread on social media showing immigration officers knocking on doors in Minneapolis and St Paul, which includes the area known as Little Mogadishu.

The posts triggered alarm for much of the city’s Somali community, which is the largest in the United States and numbers around 80,000.

The BBC also spoke to five young Somali men who spent their days at a friend’s small house, carefully moving around rooms that were not their own. They suddenly left the apartment they rented last week, not because they wanted to, but because the lease was in their names.

People granted temporary protected status feared it was only a matter of time before ICE tracked down the address and came for them. They grabbed what they could carry and slipped away into the night, hoping that a change of location would provide some protection.

Their lives are now on hold. Work shifts are missed. Meals are skipped or extended. One man described how quickly everything collapsed: “We’re running out of food. We haven’t gone to work for the last five days because we’re afraid ICE will be waiting for us. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”

Although there are no official figures, Mahad is not alone in being deported to Somalia in recent months.

The BBC also spoke to another Somali teenager who wished to remain anonymous. He said he was struggling to rebuild his life in Mogadishu.

He was desperate to leave rural Somalia as a long drought had destroyed his livelihood. After traveling north from Brazil, he illegally crossed the Mexican border into the United States but was detained soon after. He spent 18 months in detention before being deported back to Somalia.

While talking on the phone, he explains that he feels uncertain about his future.

“They sent me back to start from scratch,” he says. “Everything I worked for disappeared.”

He says he spent around $20,000 (£15,000) to reach the US, including money he borrowed from friends and family.

He says he has had no money since returning home and no opportunities in Somalia.

“I don’t see a future here,” he says. “Nothing happens…no employment.”

Now he is considering emigrating once again.

“I don’t want to start life over again. I want to immigrate to any country now.”