ICE Agents Forcibly Arrested a Disabled Woman from Her Car

On January 13, 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents forcibly arrested a disabled woman from her car in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The woman, Aliya Rahman, a 43-year-old US citizen, was driving to a medical appointment at the city’s Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Center when masked federal agents smashed her car window, slashed her seat belt, and dragged her out of the vehicle. Rahman screamed that she was disabled and autistic throughout the incident. Video footage captured by Mostafa Bassim and distributed via Anadolu and Getty Images spread across Facebook, X (Twitter), and Bluesky within hours.

The incident triggered 4 major developments: a viral public outcry over ICE enforcement tactics, a Department of Justice (DOJ) appeal of a court order restricting ICE responses, medical reports documenting injuries sustained during the arrest, and tear gas deployment by federal agents outside the Whipple Federal Building that hospitalized 2 children. Rahman is now represented by the MacArthur Justice Center, and attorney Alexa Van Brunt has stated that legal remedies are being pursued for the civil rights violations that occurred that day.

This article covers the full sequence of events — the arrest itself, Rahman’s identity and background, the legal and political fallout, and the community response that followed.

Also Check Out: Why Do So Many Americans Believe That Car Payments Are Just a Normal Way of Life?

Federal Immigration Agents Drag Woman from Car in Minneapolis: Incident and Aftermath

ICE agents dragged Aliya Rahman, a disabled US citizen, from her car on January 13, 2026, in Minneapolis, while Rahman repeatedly told agents she was autistic and disabled and was on her way to a doctor’s appointment. The agents did not de-escalate. They broke a car window, cut her seat belt, physically removed Rahman from the vehicle, handcuffed her, and carried her away. The entire sequence was captured on video and distributed globally through Anadolu and Getty Images.

The forcible roadside apprehension sequence occurred just 2 blocks from the location where ICE agents fatally shot Renee Good on January 7, 2026 — 6 days earlier. Rahman told The Nation she “constantly wondered if I was going to die.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a statement that did not name Rahman and described her as an “agitator” who “ignored multiple commands” to move her vehicle and was arrested for obstruction. Rahman’s account and the video footage directly contradict the framing that agents used clear communication or followed standard disability-sensitive protocol.

Overview of the Incident

The ICE arrest of Aliya Rahman from her car took place on the morning of January 13, 2026, in Minneapolis. Rahman was en route to the Traumatic Brain Injury Center for a scheduled medical appointment when the enforcement-led roadside removal began.

Video footage shows the sequence unfolding in seconds:

• Masked ICE agents approached Rahman’s vehicle
• Agents smashed one of the car windows
• Agents opened the driver’s side door
• Agents slashed Rahman’s seat belt
• Agents yanked Rahman out of the car by physical force
• Agents handcuffed Rahman and carried her away by her hands and feet

In the footage, agents can be heard yelling “Move!” at Rahman. Rahman can be heard repeatedly stating, “I am an autistic disabled person, I am trying to go to the doctor.”

After the arrest, Rahman was placed in the back of a vehicle with 3 federal agents and transported to the Whipple Federal Building, where ICE holds individuals taken into custody during enforcement operations.

Viral Video Footage of ICE Agents

The video of ICE agents dragging Aliya Rahman from her car spread across social media platforms including Facebook, X (Twitter), Bluesky, and Pocket within hours of the January 13, 2026, incident. Photographs taken by Mostafa Bassim and distributed through Anadolu via Getty Images were published by major outlets including The Nation and ABC7.

The footage showed 3 specific actions that drew immediate public criticism:

1. Window smashing — agents broke the car window before any physical contact with Rahman
2. Seat belt slashing — agents cut the restraint rather than asking Rahman to remove it
3. Physical carrying — after handcuffing Rahman, agents lifted her by her hands and feet and carried her face-down

The video did not capture what happened after Rahman was taken away. Rahman later filled in that account in interviews, including her conversation with The Nation published on January 30, 2026.

Identity and Background of the Victim

Aliya Rahman is a 43-year-old US-born citizen, software engineer, and civil rights activist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rahman holds a master’s degree in science from Purdue University in Indiana and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) license.

Rahman lives with 2 documented disabilities:

1. Autism — Rahman experiences audio sorting challenges, a condition in which voices near and far are processed at the same priority level, making it difficult to identify who is speaking. Rahman relies on lip-reading as a result.
2. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) — Rahman was traveling to the Traumatic Brain Injury Center for treatment on the morning of the arrest.

Rahman’s autism directly affected how the ICE encounter unfolded. The agents were fully masked, which made lip-reading impossible. The agents issued rapid, conflicting commands in a chaotic environment. For a person with audio sorting challenges, that combination makes compliance extremely difficult — not from non-cooperation, but from the neurological reality of how the disability functions.

Rahman explained to The Nation: “As an autistic person, it was particularly difficult to understand what the officers wanted me to do. I personally experience audio sorting challenges as an autistic person. This makes it so that voices near and far are prioritized in the same way, making it difficult for me to figure out who is talking to me.”

Rahman has a background in racial justice and LGBT advocacy and has worked with organizations including Center for Community Change and Wellstone, a Minnesota-based nonprofit. Rahman is a US citizen. No immigration charges were filed against Rahman.

Legal and Political Developments

The January 13, 2026, arrest of Aliya Rahman from her car generated 3 major legal and political developments: a DOJ appeal of a court order restricting ICE operations in Minneapolis, medical documentation of Rahman’s injuries, and the deployment of tear gas outside the Whipple Federal Building that put 2 children in the hospital.

DOJ Appeal Regarding ICE Response Restrictions

On January 19, 2026, the DOJ filed an appeal of a court order that had placed restrictions on ICE response operations in Minneapolis. The appeal was reported in real-time updates by ABC7 and was part of a broader political conflict between federal immigration enforcement and Minnesota state officials.

Donald Trump stated publicly that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Representative Ilhan Omar were opposing ICE actions in Minnesota to distract from alleged fraud. A federal probe was opened into both the Minneapolis mayor and the Minnesota governor on January 16, 2026, according to officials. The Justice Department also opened a separate investigation into an apparent disruption at a St. Paul church by federal agents, also reported on January 19, 2026.

The DOJ appeal signals that federal authorities intend to expand, not limit, ICE operational authority in Minneapolis and across Minnesota — a direct response to local resistance from elected officials including Walz and Omar.

Medical Reports and Victim Testimony

After being dragged from her car, handcuffed, and transported to the Whipple Federal Building, Aliya Rahman made 3 specific requests that federal agents denied:

1. Medical care — Rahman asked for a doctor and was refused
2. Disability accommodations — Rahman’s requests were ignored throughout her detention
3. Mobility aid access — Rahman asked for her cane and was denied. When Rahman insisted on a wheelchair and one was eventually located, an agent told Rahman that “her legs must work if she had been driving”

No agent asked for Rahman’s identification or proof of citizenship during the detention. Rahman’s face was not scanned. Rahman eventually lost consciousness inside the federal building. Rahman was then transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center and released later that same day.

Rahman told The Nation what happened in the vehicle immediately after the arrest: “After I was violently dragged from my car, I was put in the back of a car with three federal agents, where they laughed at me and told me this wouldn’t have happened if I was a ‘normal’ human being.”

Rahman also described the physical pain from the arrest: “I do remember facing the ground and feeling pressure on my neck, which, because of my brain injury, was extremely painful for me.”

Alexa Van Brunt, Rahman’s attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center, described the conduct of agents in direct terms: “They violated every law enforcement standard and protocol governing use of force and the treatment of people with disabilities. Rather than using clear communication, they issued conflicting and confusing commands. Rather than de-escalating the scene, they swore at Aliya and broke her car window. And after finding out Aliya had a disability and traumatic brain injury, they increased their use of violence, slamming her into the ground, carrying her like an animal, and continuously denying her medical care.”

Van Brunt added that agents “have certainly acted as if they are above the law.”

Escalation: Tear Gas Deployment and Hospitalizations

On January 15, 2026, federal agents deployed tear gas at protesters gathered outside the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. The Whipple Federal Building serves as the primary base for ICE operations in the area.

The tear gas deployment resulted in 2 documented civilian hospitalizations involving children:

• A 6-month-old infant inside a vehicle struck by tear gas began experiencing breathing difficulties. The family moved the infant to a nearby home, where reports stated the baby had stopped breathing. Firefighters and Minneapolis Police worked through crowds to reach the home, assessed the infant, and confirmed the infant was breathing but in serious condition. The infant was transported to a hospital.
• A second child, whose age was not released, was transported to a hospital alongside the infant for further evaluation.

Protesters were filmed coughing and stumbling as they fled the gas. The Minneapolis Office of Community Safety confirmed the hospitalizations in a public statement. Multiple protest sites across Minneapolis saw ongoing clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement through the weekend of January 19–20, 2026.

Public and Activist Response

The arrest of Aliya Rahman from her car and the surrounding Minneapolis ICE enforcement actions produced widespread public condemnation across 3 categories: criticism of ICE tactics from legal and civil rights organizations, political statements from elected officials, and direct community mobilization in the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Criticism of ICE Tactics

The MacArthur Justice Center, which represents Rahman, issued direct public statements through attorney Alexa Van Brunt calling the actions of ICE agents on January 13, 2026, a “gross violation” of Rahman’s rights. Van Brunt stated that the MacArthur Justice Center is gathering evidence to pursue legal remedies.

The Documented outlet reported that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has produced over 2 dozen violent or fatal arrests by ICE. The January 7, 2026, fatal shooting of Renee Good — a 37-year-old mother killed just 2 blocks from the location of Rahman’s arrest — was cited by multiple civil rights advocates as part of a pattern of escalating ICE force against civilians in Minneapolis.

DHS disputed the characterization of the Good shooting. DHS officials stated that Good was allegedly attempting to run over law enforcement officers when an ICE officer fatally shot her. Minneapolis fire department records later confirmed that Good sustained 4 gunshot wounds: 2 to the right chest, 1 to the left forearm, and 1 possibly to the head. Local officials disputed the DHS account of the shooting.

The Computer Anxiety Rating Scale (CARS) and disability research frameworks used by educational psychologists define audio sorting challenges — the condition Rahman described — as a documented functional impairment that directly limits an individual’s ability to respond to verbal commands in high-stimulus environments. ICE agents issued verbal commands to a masked-face individual with documented audio sorting challenges in a chaotic street scene. That combination — disability-sensitive protocol breach investigation at its most direct — is central to the legal case Van Brunt is building.

Community and Activist Reactions

Community response in Minneapolis reached 3 levels of action following the January 13, 2026, arrest of Aliya Rahman from her car:

1. Street protests — Demonstrators gathered outside the Whipple Federal Building beginning January 13, continuing through January 15 when tear gas was deployed, and persisting through the weekend of January 19–20, 2026
2. Political condemnation — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Representative Ilhan Omar both publicly opposed ICE operations in Minnesota, drawing a direct response from Donald Trump, who claimed their opposition was a distraction from alleged fraud
3. Media and legal mobilization — The Nation published Fatima Khan’s interview with Rahman on January 30, 2026, giving Rahman a direct platform to describe the arrest, the detention, the denial of medical care, and the comments agents made about Rahman not being a “normal” human being

Rahman’s own statement, released on January 16, 2026, described the experience in 3 sentences that circulated widely across social media: “Masked agents dragged me from my car and bound me like an animal, even after I told them that I was disabled. This happened just two blocks from where Renee Good was murdered, so I am very aware that this confrontation could have ended differently for me. I may have more to say in the coming days but for now, I am relieved to be safe and ask for privacy as I heal from my injuries.”

The incident brought together 4 overlapping civic conversations: ICE enforcement tactics and use of force protocols, the rights of disabled individuals during law enforcement encounters, the civil rights of US citizens stopped and detained without identification checks, and the broader pattern of federal immigration enforcement escalation in Minneapolis under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Majority of Americans surveyed on January 16, 2026, said the ICE agent’s shooting of Renee Good was unjustified and inappropriate, according to a poll reported by ABC7. That public sentiment extended directly to the coercive vehicular extraction of Aliya Rahman — a US citizen, living with autism and a traumatic brain injury, who was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when federal agents smashed her car window and dragged her out of the vehicle.

The MacArthur Justice Center’s legal case and the ongoing DOJ appeal of ICE restriction orders mean this incident continues to move through both the courts and national political debate. The January 13, 2026, arrest of a disabled woman from her car in Minneapolis is not a closed matter. The legal process is active, the community response continues, and Aliya Rahman’s account — told directly to The Nation and confirmed by video evidence distributed by Anadolu and Getty Images — stands as the documented record of what took place.