ICE Agents Smashed a Disabled Woman's Car Window in Minneapolis. She Was Released Without Charges
She said she was disabled and going to the doctor. ICE agents smashed her window and pulled her out anyway. The video of what happened next became one of the defining images of the federal immigration surge in Minneapolis.
It happened on January 13, 2026. Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen who lives in Minneapolis, was driving to a medical appointment when she reached an intersection where federal agents were conducting an operation near 34th Street and Park Avenue. Agents told her to move her car. In video of the encounter, she says she is "disabled just trying to go to the doctor up there" and that this is why she could not move. She also says she had been beaten by police before. One masked agent broke the passenger-side window, two others cut her seatbelt, and she was pulled from the car, pushed against it and handcuffed.
Rahman has said she has autism and a traumatic brain injury, and that the appointment was her 39th for the brain injury. She said she felt shooting pain through her head, neck and wrists while she was pinned, and she later needed medical care. She was released that afternoon without charges. "Masked agents dragged me from my car and bound me like an animal, even after I told them that I was disabled," she said afterward.
On February 3, she testified at a bicameral public forum in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington. She said she was never asked for ID, never told she was under arrest, never read her rights and never charged with a crime. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told her that she had seen the video, but that hearing her story was "even more chilling."
The government tells a different story. Days after her testimony, ICE released its own video of the encounter, saying it contradicted her version of events. DHS called her claims a smear, and some conservative outlets reported that she refused repeated orders to move her car away from an active operation. Supporters of the agents argue that a driver who will not clear an enforcement scene leaves officers few options.
Her case did not end there. In February, Rahman attended President Trump's State of the Union address as a guest of Rep. Ilhan Omar and was arrested for disrupting the session. Omar demanded an investigation. Her attorney later said the government would not file charges in that case either, adding that she "committed no crime and did nothing wrong."
The questions raised by her arrest are the same ones that have followed the Minneapolis operation for months: how agents should treat U.S. citizens who end up near an enforcement action, what they owe people who say they are disabled, and who reviews force used during these stops. ICE has not announced any review of the agents involved.
Was this arrest justified? YES OR NO?
