Sacramento mayor, council members seek release of Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and city council members are taking up the cause of Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen, expressing “grave concern” that he remains in federal custody more than a week after a Sacramento judge refused to allow his extradition and ordered him released from jail.
In a letter Monday to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Steinberg and council members Katie Valenzuela, Eric Guerra, Mai Vang, Jay Schenirer and Sean Loloee claim that Ameen “was wrongly scapegoated by the Trump administration” when he was arrested in 2018 and subjected to extradition hearings to face trial in Iraq over allegations he was a terrorist leader who killed a police officer there.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund Brennan ruled April 21 that federal prosecutors’ evidence against Ameen was “dubious” and refused to recommend his extradition.
“Now that he has been exonerated, we implore you to release Mr. Ameen from federal detention, return him to our Sacramento community, and undo the harm caused by the Trump Administration,” the letter to Mayorkas reads.
Brennan ordered Ameen’s immediate release after issuing his order, and his jubilant federal defenders, Rachelle Barbour and Ben Galloway, went to the Sacramento County Main Jail to tell their client he would soon be reunited with his wife and children.
Instead, Ameen was turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who took him to a detention facility near Bakersfield to be held on essentially the same charges he faced in the extradition proceedings.
“Mr. Ameen appreciates this heartfelt statement of support from Mayor Steinberg, five members of the Sacramento City Council and the Sacramento community,” Barbour wrote in an email to The Bee. “After two years, eight months in custody on false terrorism charges, Omar desperately wishes to be back home with his family in Sacramento. His children are growing up without him.
“On April 21, 2021, Omar had the joy of being completely exonerated by the federal court, followed by the crushing sorrow of being taken into custody without even seeing his family. Omar is extremely thankful that the Sacramento community supports his request for release from ICE detention.”
Barbour says she is now working to get an immigration attorney for Ameen, who has insisted he was in Turkey with his family waiting for permission to come to the United States when the officer was killed in Iraq.
She also noted that a website supporting their efforts - freeomarameen.com - has been set up.
His attorneys presented cell phone evidence that he never left Turkey. Federal authorities noted that Ameen may have gone to Iraq without taking his phone, but Brennan was not persuaded by their evidence.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Sacramento has declined comment on the case since Brennan’s order. Immigration officials have not responded to a request for comment from The Bee.
In their letter, Sacramento officials say the federal government’s evidence against Ameen was “riddled with internal contradictions, suggestions of bias and irregularities consistent with fraud.”
“Omar Ameen is an Iraqi refugee who was resettled to the United States in 2014, a process that required him to pass extensive security screenings conducted by or using databases from, the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, National Counterterrorism Center, Department of Defense, USCIS’ Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, and Interpol,” the letter says, noting that if Ameen had been extradited he likely would have faced execution in Iraq.
“As he has irrefutably shown, Mr. Ameen was not in Iraq at the time of his alleged crime; he had been living in Turkey since 2012 where he had claimed asylum from Iraq,” the letter added.