Why did Somali deportation flight return?

Feds, detainees tell conflicting stories of bizarre episode.

Power and water outages at a Senegalese hotel triggered a bizarre episode last week when a U.S. deportation flight returned to America with all its 92 Somali nationals onboard, including some who resided in Georgia, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

En route to Djibouti — a country adjacent to Somalia — the plane first landed in the Senegalese capital of Dakar to pick up a relief flight crew. But ICE says those crew members didn’t get adequate rest at their hotel because it lacked electricity and water.

The agency says other factors, including some limited operating hours at the Djibouti airport, influenced ICE’s decision to return the plane to the United States and reschedule the flight for another time. The plane landed Friday evening in Florida, and the detainees have been sent to immigration detention centers in Miami and Moore Haven, Fla.

Meanwhile, ICE is rebutting allegations that some detainees were injured in an altercation that broke out on the plane as they grew restless waiting in Senegal.

Esra Shurbjy of Atlanta said her fiancé, Maruf Sharif, who was among the detainees on the plane, called her after he landed in Florida. Sharif and the other detainees, she said, became aggravated as they sat on the plane in shackles for many hours, without any food and water.

“The detainees became frustrated while in Senegal, and demanded to be given more information,” she said in an email. “At this point, ICE officials started hitting the inmates, WHO ARE STILL SHACKLED. Some detainees were punched in the face. ICE officials attempted to tie up several detainees, which created big chaos and led to several detainees being injured.”

Naima Musse of Stone Mountain offered a similar account, saying her husband, Abdusalam Hussein, was also among the detainees on the plane. He called her Saturday from Florida, saying his feet were swollen and his wrists were hurt from being shackled for so long.

“There was an altercation between the detainees and I guess the immigration officers,” Musse said. “Some people are hurt.”

ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett denied the allegations, saying the plane had air conditioning and sufficient food and water while it was parked at the airport in Dakar.

“No one was injured in an altercation,” she said.

ICE released a statement about the situation Saturday, citing “issues” with the hotel in Dakar and saying “various logistical options were explored, and ultimately ICE decided to reschedule the mission to Somalia and return to the United States with all 92 detainees.”

Shurbjy and Musse doubt that explanation.

“Are you telling me you left the U.S. and went all the way to go to Africa and just came back because you didn’t have anyone to relieve the pilot?” Musse said. “Really? Come on.”

Revelations about the deportation flight come amid President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to temporarily ban visitors from Somalia and some other Muslim-majority countries. Trump says his executive order — now facing constitutional challenges in federal courts — is needed to protect national security, which critics vigorously deny. At the same time, ICE has emphasized it is not targeting people for deportation based on their religion.

Advocates for the Somali nationals are objecting to returning them to their homeland, saying they have lived in America for years while pointing out that Somalia has endured persistent deprivation and violence from Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked insurgent group.

Nine detainees who were on last week’s deportation flight lived in Georgia, said Omar Shekhey, who leads the Somali American Community Center in Clarkston. He also is incredulous about ICE’s explanation for why the plane returned last week.

“Is that the normal excuse?” Shekhey said. “Come on.”