A group of detainees board an Eastern Air Express deportation flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on January 11, 2026 in St. Paul, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The group believes Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane were targeted by police in Equatorial Guinea for speaking out about poor treatment in the hotel they were detained in following their deportation.
As Amnesty International warned that two men are now at risk of being tortured in detention in Equatorial Guinea, where the Trump administration deported them earlier this year under one of several secretive deals, US. Rep. Adelita Grijalva said that the “ultimate responsibility lies with” the White House, which sent the men “into harm’s way.”
The human rights group issued an urgent appeal, calling on supporters to send letters to the vice president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, saying that that Ahmed Soliman, an Egyptian national, and Samson Birhane, who is from Eritrea, were “beaten and violently taken by police officers from the Hotel Bamy in Malabo,” the capital of Equatorial Guinea.
They had been “arbitrarily” held at the hotel along with dozens of other people since US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent them there on deportation flights earlier this year. Soliman and Birhane had protection from refoulement to their countries of origin from US immigration courts, but President Donald Trump’s administration has arranged with five governments, through direct payments of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer money, to send hundreds of migrants to countries where they have never lived—many with records of human rights abuses.
Soliman has publicly spoken out against their arbitrary detention, and international media recently published a video showing a police officer at Hotel Bamy pointing a weapon at him and another man.
I am deeply concerned for the safety of Ahmed Soliman after he was deported to Equatorial Guinea and subsequently arrested by local authorities. We need answers immediately.
Last Friday, days after the video went public, said Amnesty, Soliman and Birhane were “targeted” by police, who arrived at the hotel and took them away briefly.
Amnesty continued in its letter and call to action:
Later during the day police officers went back to the hotel, bringing Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane back with them, who had their heads covered with bags tied with a rope. Police officers beat them in their heads, backs, and ribs with their elbows, knees, and guns, asking them where they hid the phones. They pushed one of the men down the stairs of the hotel and said to others that they may never see Ahmed Soliman and Samson Birhane again.
The group wrote that the men were taken “the Malabo gendarmery station known as ‘La Luna’” and were accused of breaking a mirror at the hotel.
“Since then, they have not been informed of the charges against them, nor allowed to speak to their lawyers, and are held in an overcrowded police cell, in inhumane conditions,” reads the sample letter. “I am concerned that they are at heightened risk of torture.”
The New York Timesreported that a lawyer who has been able to get some information about Soliman and Birhane’s condition said they have been denied food and are “covered in bruises.”
“The authorities must immediately release them, inform them of any charges against them, and allow them unimpeded access to counsel,” said Amnesty International.
Officials in the Trump administration, said Grijalva (D-Ariz.), “need to take responsibility and demand Ahmed’s immediate release.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says he wishes someone would Lock Him Up, small Orca says he thinks that his meds have been changed.
Legal immigrant Adam Abdullah of St. Paul, Minnesota was arrested during the Trump administration’s deadly Operation Metro Surge crackdown and is now being held at the notorious Guantánamo Bay prison. (Photo by handout/Sahan Journal)
“Nobody tell us that we’re going to Guantánamo Bay,” said one victim. “Just like kidnapping.”
Anger is growing this week as more details emerge about the Trump administration’s detention of Somali immigrants at Guantánamo Bay, including people with no criminal records and, in at least one case, a legal US resident.
At least eight Somali men are being held at the notorious US military base in Cuba, while as many as 12 Somali deportees have passed through the facility in recent weeks, according to Sahan Journal. Seven of those still there are being held at Camp 6, which was originally opened under the George W. Bush administration during the so-called War on Terror to imprison men and at least one child in a facility rife with torture and other abuse.
“I never expected to be arrested in a prison established for the terrorists who I fled from,” 31-year-old Hassan Abdi Abtidoon told Sahan Journal’s Mohamud Farah on Tuesday.
Among the other Somalis held at Guantánamo is 31-year-old Adam Abdullah, a St. Paul, Minnesota, resident who came to the United States as a legal asylum seeker in 2023. Abdullah had a work permit and Social Security number, operated an auto repair business, and had no criminal record, according to Minnesota court records. His past involvement with law enforcement appeared to include nothing more than two parking tickets.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Abdullah in December during the Trump administration’s deadly Operation Metro Surge campaign, which targeted Minnesota’s large Somali community amid widespread racist demonization and dehumanization by Republicans, including President Donald Trump.
After months of detention in Minnesota, Kentucky, and Louisiana, Abdullah said officials told him he was being deported to Somalia.
“From Miami, they say, ‘OK, now we go to Somalia. Then, first we go to Cuba for refueling, and then we go to some other countries to Somalia,’” Abdullah told Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) earlier this month.
The flight never left Cuba. Abdullah was taken to Camp 6, where he has remained.
Another Somali detainee, Sakariye Abdi Mohamed, described Camp 6 as “the worst place ever I’ve been in my life.”
Mother Jones reported Wednesday that Mohamed was one of 12 Somali men forced onto a plane last month by ICE agents, who told them they were being deported to Somalia.
“Nobody tell us that we’re going to Guantánamo Bay,” Mohamed said. “Just like kidnapping.”
This is APPALLING. The Trump administration is detaining multiple random Somali immigrants with no criminal record at Guantanamo Bay, seemingly because the White House ordered ICE specifically to detain Somalis at Gitmo as part of its effort to punish an ethnic group Trump has attacked.
Seven or eight of the men reportedly remain at Guantánamo, where some of them have described being shackled and subjected to frigid temperatures. Detainees also said they are subjected to constant surveillance, including cameras inside bathrooms.
The US Department of Homeland Security claimed the flight included “some of the worst of the worst” with criminal histories including assault, weapons offenses, robbery, theft, drug charges, and drunken driving.
However, Sahan Journal reported that the attorney for six of the eight detainees had found that all had final deportation orders but no additional criminal charges. Four were recent asylum seekers, and two had lived in the United States for decades.
“The administration says we send the worst of the worst to Guantánamo,” US Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) toldMPR Wednesday. “Yet in the case of Mr. Abdullah, there has been no evidence presented about what he has done, no explanation for why he has been detained. I mean, there is really has been no due process.”
The Trump administration’s use of Guantánamo for immigration detention is not unprecedented. The facility—which experts have placed within the centuries-long story of American concentration camps—has a long history as an offshore immigration detention site that predates the post-9/11 military prison camp.
During the George H.W. Bush administration, thousands of Haitian refugees fleeing political violence were intercepted at sea and taken to Guantánamo. The Clinton administration continued the policy and, at its peak in 1994, roughly 14,300 Haitians were held there. Clinton officials subsequently used Guantánamo for Cuban migrants, more than 30,000 of whom were jailed at the base.
The treatment of Somali immigrants at Guantánamo has also drawn renewed criticism regarding who has and has not been targeted for deportation from the United States.
Human rights activist Suleiman Bolaleh, who has documented atrocities committed under former US-backed Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre, noted in a recent social media post that Somali immigrants with no criminal records are being rounded up and sent to Guantánamo, while members of the former dictatorship’s ruling family and senior figures have lived in the United States.
“Men once positioned at the heart of a regime accused of mass killings, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing continue to reside openly in American communities,” Bolaleh wrote. “The contrast is jarring: An immigrant [who] has no criminal record is detained at Guantánamo, while figures tied to that dictatorship’s violent apparatus remain unexamined and unaccountable.”
Multiple legal challenges to the Trump administration’s use of Guantánamo Bay for immigrant detention have been launched.
Meanwhile, the longstanding habeas litigation involving War on Terror detainees at Guantánamo continues. In May, Somali national Guled Hassan Duran—who has been held at Guantánamo since 2006 without being charged—asked a federal court to order his release after years of inaction on his habeas petition.
Duran was approved for release by senior US officials in 2021, but remains imprisoned at Guantánamo along with 14 other men—none of whom has ever been convicted of any terrorism-related crimes. Former Bush administration and US military officials have said that most of the men and boys who were ever imprisoned at Guantánamo were innocent, and that senior administration officials knew it but kept them locked up for political purposes.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Article republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Charts are visible in the original article.
Home Office’s visa and citizenship fees are up to 10 times the processing cost – and rising every year
In brief
The government’s vast profits from the UK visa system run counter to claim that migrants are a financial burden on the state
Fees charged for visas, citizenship and health surcharge far outstrip the actual cost to the Home Office
Families trying to settle and stay in the UK are giving up basic essentials to cover tens of thousands in costs
When Bethany Sparrow fell in love, she didn’t expect that moving in with her partner would put her on the breadline.
She and Moheb met on holiday in Tunisia and they got married a year and a half later. But to live together in the UK, they discovered, they would have to pay the British government £5,000.
Already working full-time as a teaching assistant for children with autism, Bethany took a second job at JD Sports on weekends and school holidays. That still wasn’t enough, so she started cutting back on essentials – “sacrificing everyday normal things, sacrificing food”.
“[The government’s] not thinking about what it’s doing to families, how emotionally exhausting it is, how much we’re having to save,” she said. “I lost so much weight … [It was] the worst experience I’ve ever dealt with in my whole life. You can’t even put into words how mentally draining it is.”
After almost a year, though, they saved enough for Moheb’s visa and, in March, he moved to the UK. But even with both of them working and saving everything they can, they are unsure if they will be able to afford his visa renewal when it is due in 2028.
Bethany Sparrow at home with her husband Moheb Phil Hitchman
Reunite Families UK, a nonprofit organisation supporting families affected by visa rules, estimates that visa and citizenship applications could end up costing Bethany and her husband more than £13,000.
The couple are not alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are forced to pay these rising fees every year – and many have amassed eye-watering debts to cover the costs. The majority are people who have already been in the UK for years and are looking to renew their visas or settle.
And, contrary to the common claim that migrants are a financial burden on the country, the British state makes billions of pounds in profit from these fees – some of which are more than 10 times the actual administrative cost.
According to our analysis, the government raked in almost £5bn last year in profit from various visa, citizenship and immigration charges. That’s more than it gets in corporation tax from all of the energy, gas, water, sewage and hospitality industries combined.
“I think the government knows how desperate people are to stay in this country, so they’re taking advantage,” said Rumbidzai Bvunzawabaya, a solicitor and CEO of Tulia, a charity that supports migrant workers. “And what makes it worse is that then they always scapegoat migrants and say they’re just coming in to freeload.”
Matteo Besana, head of policy and advocacy at Reunite Families UK, said it was “a national scandal that the Home Office has been allowed to profiteer for as long as it has”.
“The current visa system is a form of double taxation that deliberately keeps people and children in poverty. No government should be able to justify this.”
‘Easy money’
The UK has the most expensive immigration fees in Europe. In part, this is because it makes a profit on most applications. But this wasn’t always the case.
Around 20 years ago, people only had to pay what it cost the government to process the visa. For Bethany and her husband that would have meant a one-off charge of £260. Other visas were even cheaper.
This changed in 2005 under Tony Blair’s government. Since then visa costs have spiralled far above the rate of inflation.
To give one example, the cost of a settlement application, also known as indefinite leave to remain (ILR), has increased by more than 20 times in the space of two decades, from £155 to £3,226. Similar increases have taken place with work visas, citizenship applications for UK-born children of immigrants, and for student visas, among others.
Then, in 2015, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government added another fee many migrants had to pay on top of their visas: the immigration health surcharge. The charge, which helps fund the health system, can cost someone as much as £1,035 per year.
The Oxford Immigration Observatory calls it a form of “double taxation”. Migrants, who already pay more in tax than they take out of the system, are then charged again via the surcharge.
The research centre estimates that, through the different charges and renewals, someone on the skilled worker visa will pay upwards of £24,000 before they can become a British citizen. A family with one child could pay over £40,000.
Layla Hussain, advocacy officer at the charity Refugee & Migrant Justice said the government is making “obscene profits” from migrants who then face barriers to building their lives in the UK.
She described young people being prevented from going to university because of their immigration status, parents having to choose between feeding their children and paying fees, and families taking on debts that take decades to repay.
A Home Office spokesperson denied that the government profited from these fees, saying the money is put towards the wider migration and borders system. This includes immigration enforcement, border force and detention centres.
The spokesperson said: “It is right that those who benefit from the migration and borders system contribute towards its costs, reducing the burden on taxpayers.” They added that the health surcharge ensures migrants make a “fair contribution” to the NHS.
But the scale of the fees have historically been opposed by politicians who now hold senior positions in government.
In 2018, Yvette Cooper, now the health and social care secretary, said the scale of citizenship fees “has become a real and growing problem”.
Stephen Doughty, a minister in the Commonwealth and Development Office previously called for a review into the fees being charged saying “it is never acceptable … to make a profit on these crucial activities”.
David Lammy, who until recently was deputy prime minister, said while in opposition that people were being “exploited by excessive fees”.
As part of this story we asked them if they stood by these statements. None of them replied.
“Now, when they have the chance to make things better, they have not only gone quiet but are set to massively increase charges for migrants through the Immigration and Asylum Bill,” said Green Party MP Sian Berry.
“The government is treating people who have built their lives here as a source of easy money, regardless of the hardship it causes.”
The bill Berry refers to is proposing to extend the period people have to spend in the UK before they can settle to as long as 30 years. This will mean people will face more visa renewals – and with them, more fees.
The government is treating people who have built their lives here as a source of easy money
Sian Berry, Green Party MP
When proposing immigration changes earlier this year, the home secretary Shabana Mahmood justified them by suggesting immigrants are a burden on the taxpayer.
Such claims have largely been debunked, with even the Office For Budget Responsibility, the government’s independent forecaster, estimating that reducing net migration by 100,000 per year would leave the public purse £7bn worse off a five-year period.
‘A disaster’
People on the lowest incomes can apply for a fee waiver on some visa applications, but as 78-year-old Pat Dore discovered, the decisions are not always fair.
Pat’s son, a former software developer, has been unable to work since developing ME and couldn’t afford to pay for his wife and daughter’s visas. Initially, Pat paid the combined £7,000 visa and surcharge fees, amassing credit card debt in the process. She had already been failed once by the state, as a victim of the Post Office scandal, and she used her compensation from that ordeal to cover the costs.
But when it came time to renew the visas two and a half years later, the family had no savings left. Pat’s son applied for a fee waiver – and it was refused.
As part of the application, he had provided bank statements from his Smile account. In its rejection, the Home Office said that records showed he had a bank account with the Co-op, which he had not disclosed. But Smile is a brand name for the Co-op; the account they were asking for was the one he had told them about.
Pat has now increased her credit card limit to cover this second set of visa and solicitor fees.
A government review from last year found several cases of Home Office officials making mistakes on fee waiver applications, including refusing an application from a homeless 18-year-old because she could not provide copies of bank statements or a tenancy agreement.
“I had high hopes for Labour,” Pat said. “[But] if you’ve got disabled people in your family and immigrants, it’s a disaster because they’re the two people they’ve gone for.”
‘To somebody else I don’t belong’
John Mataruse, 44, and his family were among the lucky ones. Originally a relationship manager at a bank in Zimbabwe, he came to the UK in 2021 after his wife was offered a job as a nurse in the NHS. As a health worker, the family was exempt from paying the health surcharge and their initial visas were cheaper than those of other skilled workers.
When it came to applying for settlement, they had to pay the same as everyone else. The full bill for all four family members, including language tests and biometrics, came to more than £15,000. They couldn’t afford this sum so took out a personal loan which will take them years to pay off.
If the Home Office had charged them what it costs to process the applications, they would have paid £1,240.
ILR applications are among the most profitable for the Home Office: only £310 of the £3,226 charge covers the actual administrative cost of processing the application.
John’s family also paid an extra £2,000 to fast-track the applications and avoid spending up to six months in a state of limbo waiting for the government to make a decision.
He could have waited, but he says he was worried the government could change the rules and leave his family in an uncertain situation for even longer, racking up visa charges for years. It’s a choice many people are facing with the looming immigration bill.
Fatima*, who arrived in the UK from Pakistan when she was five, told us that her family put the cost of her ILR application on a credit card they couldn’t afford.
She estimates that by the time they are able to pay it all back, they would have paid twice as much as the original fee in interest payments.
Fatima says she comes from a country looted by the British Empire. Her family members fought for Britain in two world wars. “I feel this should be free… if anything the Home Office should compensate us.”
For both Fatima and John, permanent residency has brought some peace of mind, albeit at a steep cost. But John says there is another side to it.
Referring to the recent Belfast riots that targeted migrant communities, he says: “I paid all that, but in a moment a demonstration can lead me to running away from my home.
“Yes, I’m settled. But then at the same time, to somebody else, I still don’t belong … There are many good people around, but also when you look at the news you realise that a few bad people can make life hell for you.”
Because of this, on top of the debt repayments, John is also trying to save money in case he needs to return to Zimbabwe.
“At least there no one can tell me to go back to where I came from,” he said.
* Name has been changed
Reporter: Emiliano Mellino Bureau Local editor: Gareth Davies Deputy editor: Katie Mark Editor: Franz Wild Production editor: Alex Hess Fact checker: Josephine Moulds
The Bureau has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.
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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, accompanied by President Donald Trump, speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One on October 27, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“Organizations should never face IRS scrutiny because political officials disapprove of their views.”
A pair of Senate Democrats on Thursday launched an investigation into reports that the Trump administration is planning to weaponize the Internal Revenue Service against left-leaning nonprofits, targeting the tax-exempt status of groups seen as political enemies of the White House and potentially burying the organizations with huge penalties without adequate due process.
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) announced their inquiry in response to recent reporting by the right-wing New York Post, which reported late last month that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the IRS “could revoke the tax-free status of left-wing nonprofits such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.”
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and Warnock called the story “disturbing” and argued it suggests “political considerations—including the timing of the 2026 midterm elections—are influencing” the administration’s targeting of left-leaning nonprofits. The NY Post, which cited three unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reported that “Bessent’s inner circle is drafting a blueprint that could ultimately strip non-compliant organizations of their 501(c)(3) status.”
“The reviews could result in massive back payments and civil penalties,” the outlet added.
The Democratic senators noted in a letter to Bessent and Frank Bisignano, the chief executive of the IRS, that Section 7217 of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits senior executive branch officials from “directly or indirectly” requesting that the IRS conduct or terminate an investigation into any particular taxpayer.
“The New York Post’s reporting fits a wider pattern of the Trump administration actively using national security directives to weaponize the IRS against protected First Amendment speech,” Wyden and Warnock wrote, citing the presidential memorandum known as NSPM-7. “Rather than targeting actual violence, these directives explicitly conflate terrorism with subjective political viewpoints—such as ‘anti-capitalism,’ ‘anti-Christianity,’ and views on race, migration, and gender.”
Wyden and Warnock demanded that the Treasury Department and IRS turn over the reported “blueprint” crafted by Bessent’s inner circle as well as “all policies, directives, guidance, criteria, and other documents concerning Treasury and IRS implementation of NSPM-7 as it relates to tax-exempt organizations, including criteria for selecting organizations for examination or possible revocation.”
The senators also demanded to know whether any executive branch officials in the Trump administration have “identified or recommended” particular organizations—including any of those named in the Post report—for IRS investigation.
“Americans of every political persuasion must be able to trust that the IRS applies the tax code objectively under one set of rules,” Wyden and Warnock wrote. “Organizations that violate section 501(c)(3) should face appropriate enforcement regardless of their politics—and organizations should never face IRS scrutiny because political officials disapprove of their views.”
The senators launched their probe as two Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced legislation aimed at guaranteeing that the IRS can’t strip nonprofit organizations of their tax-exempt status “without evidence and without a fair process.”
Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), the lead sponsors of the Protecting the Rights of Organizations Fairly (PROOF) Act, note that “under current law, many due process protections that are supposed to apply when the IRS examines most nonprofits exist only in the agency’s own internal manual—guidance the IRS can rewrite or suspend on its own authority through an internal memo with no public comment, no rulemaking, and no vote, and that carries no force of law.”
“The IRS should never be a weapon to punish a president’s political enemies,” Doggett said in a statement on Thursday. “No organization—left, right, or center—should lose its tax-exempt status on an accusation, without evidence, and without a fair chance to be heard.”
“The PROOF Act is simple,” he added. “If the government wants to take away a nonprofit’s status, it has to show its proof and follow the law. Today, it may be an organization to which the Trump regime objects. Tomorrow, it could be any of us.”
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