(Sacramento Bee) Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen has won a ruling from a federal immigration judge that bars the government from sending him back to Iraq because of the possibility he could face torture there, but the Sacramento resident’s legal fight is continuing after nearly four years in custody.
Ameen’s immigration lawyers said Monday that an immigration judge ruled against the federal government’s efforts to have him sent back to Iraq “because of the likelihood that he will be tortured upon return,” a victory that comes after an April 2021 ruling by a federal magistrate judge in Sacramento who ruled against the government’s efforts to extradite him and ordered his immediate release.
Instead of walking out of the Sacramento County Main Jail, where he had been held since his August 2018 arrest, [Ameen] was taken into federal immigration custody and driven to a Southern California holding facility to face proceedings to have him removed from the United States for allegedly lying about his past when he sought entry to the United States.
