E-Paper
Who is Aliya Rahman? Screaming woman yanked from car by ICE agents in Minneapolis ID’d as LGBT, racial justice activist
ICE agents were filmed smashing Aliya Rahman's car window and pulling her out of her vehicle during a protest in Minneapolis.
A woman who was filmed being pulled from her vehicle by ICE agents in Minneapolis has been identified as tech guru and LGBT and racial justice activist Aliya Rahman, a software engineer with a background in coding. Rahman is known for having supported policies for police-worn body cameras. She has ties to several advocacy groups, including a lengthy history with the Black Lives Matter movement.
A viral video showed federal agents smashing Rahman’s car window and pulling her out as she screamed on Tuesday, January 13, after she allegedly blocked ICE vehicles during a protest. This came less than a week after the death of Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three who was gunned down by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
Rahman’s video shows the driver shouting she was “disabled” and claiming she “was just trying to get to the doctor” as several masked federal agents cuffed her and escorted her away.
Who is Aliya Rahman?
According to Rahman’s LinkedIn, she is a “community-focused security practitioner” in Minneapolis. She describes herself as “your friendly neighborhood deniable asset” on X.
Rahman was previously a fellow at the New America’s Open Technology Institute. This is where the 43-year-old’s first project focused on police body cameras and how they could be built into policy. She is a US-born citizen, according to the New York Post.
“Her work is informed by a background in legislative, electoral, and community organizing for racial and criminal justice campaigns, 15 years of software development for the social justice movement, and a former life as an educator and researcher working in public education and workforce development,” Rahman’s bio on the institute’s website reads.
Read More | Minneapolis ICE shooting: Trump claims Renee Nicole Good ‘viciously ran over’ officer, blames ‘radical left’
Rahman moved to Bangladesh with her family shortly after the nation’s liberation war against Pakistan ended in 1971. “I got to see a country being put together. I grew up seeing garment workers, who were almost all women, protesting on the street,” she said.
Rahman said that she knew she was “definitely different” by the age of six, and later identified herself as “genderqueer.” She moved back to the US for college in the years that followed.
Rahman has been involved in several advocacy and nonprofit groups, including Center for Community Change, Equality Ohio — an LGBT advocacy group — and Code for Progress. Her social media shows that she has supported the Black Lives Matter movement and pro-Palestine causes.
“Since college, Aliya had taken part-time positions with and volunteer roles for LGBT and racial justice organizations,” her Tech for Social Justice profile read.
Rahman also served as the director of movement technology at Wellstone, a Minnesota-based nonprofit “that trains the community activists and political leaders that broadly make up the progressive Left,” the profile revealed. She claimed that she changed the group’s image from that of a “nice, white people-run organization” to “mostly queer, largely immigrant and overwhelmingly femme-identified or gender nonconforming.”
Rahman, a certified cybersecurity professional with a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) license, graduated from Purdue University in Indiana with a masters in science, according to her LinkedIn. She also taught at public high schools on a Native American reservation in Arizona, and later went back to her advocacy work, the Tech for Social Justice profile shows.
What happened with ICE agents?
Rahman was pulled from her car by federal agents who accused her of impeding an immigration enforcement operation on a suburban street on Tuesday. ICE agents were seen trying to clear the streets full of yelling protesters when they shouted and told her to keep driving.
An agent was eventually seen breaking the passenger side window. Another agent appeared to unlock Rahman’s side.
Rahman was yanked out of the car, with protesters shouting, “Stop,” “That’s so f—ked up” and “All you do is hurt.”
Rahman was then cuffed and taken away. It is unclear if she was charged after the incident.
Rahman has previously had some run-ins with the law. She pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing and driving under the influence charges in separate Ohio incidents years ago, and was charged with driving without insurance in Illinois, public records show. In the DUI charge, she was even found guilty of following too close, stopping improperly at a stop sign, criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, the records revealed, according to the New York Post.
