Federal court rules Somali man in Anchorage being detained illegally by ICE..

An Alaska federal magistrate has ruled that a 27-year-old Somali asylum seeker living in Anchorage is being detained illegally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities and should be released…

Roble Ahmed Salad was taken into custody by federal law enforcement in Anchorage on Feb. 5, amid a national immigration crackdown ordered by President Donald Trump. His attorneys quickly challenged his detention in federal court, illuminating how, in one circumstance, the Trump administration’s immigration policy is playing out in Alaska.

Salad entered the United States in 2022 through the Mexican border seeking asylum, his attorneys wrote in court filings, His claim was rejected and the U.S. ordered him to be deported in 2023, though the government agreed he couldn’t be returned to his home country of Somalia because it was too dangerous and dysfunctional, according to previous filings in his federal case.

In bureaucratic limbo, Salad moved to Alaska and found work as a caregiver at an assisted living home, also applying for a temporary protected status available to people from countries deemed by the U.S. to be too unstable for return.

After his arrest this month, his attorneys argued that he cannot be deported because he has a pending application for the temporary protected status, The attorneys representing the federal government argued he’d been ordered deported years ago, and under the Trump administration, Somalia accepting deportees was much more likely.