Receiving asylum is generally a lengthy process, spanning from several months to years. But Mohammed Rashid, a 29-year-old Palestinian man, was granted asylum only four months after arriving in the United States as a stowaway.
It could have been the beginning of a new chapter for Rashid, who says he fled the Gaza Strip to escape Hamas’s clutches and was hoping to start a peaceful life here in the U.S., perhaps working in fashion and photography.
But nearly a year after being granted asylum, Rashid still hasn’t set foot out of detention. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appealed the judge’s decision to grant him asylum. He has been held in recent months at Vermont’s Northwest State Correctional Facility in Saint Albans, and a hearing is set for Thursday in Chelmsford Immigration Court in Massachusetts.
People who have suffered persecution or fear being persecuted in their home countries can apply for asylum once they are in the United States. If they are granted asylum, they are protected from deportation. Asylees can eventually apply for permanent resident status and gain a path to citizenship.
“Before I came to the United States, I thought I could have peace here. All I want is to live in peace. I did not think I would be detained,” Rashid said, adding that he still can’t believe that he has been detained for 15 months. Rashid provided answers to VTDigger’s questions through one of his lawyers, Emma Matters-Wood, with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.
After being detained in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Rashid was transferred to Vermont at the end of August. It was then that attorneys with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project met him for the first time during one of their regular legal trainings to inform people held in immigration detention of their rights.
The trainings are meant to provide a legal orientation so that people in detention can advocate for themselves at a time when immigration attorneys are handling a full caseload and often don’t have the capacity to represent more people. But Rashid’s case prompted them to make an exception.
“Mohammed was one of the last we met with that day, and his story shocked us to the core: just hearing how long he had been detained and the circumstances of that detainment,” said Andy Pelcher, an attorney working pro bono with VAAP.
Pelcher and Matters-Wood with VAAP and Nathan Virag, an attorney with the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, joined forces to represent him and immediately submitted a temporary restraining order to prevent ICE from transferring Rashid so that he could stay in Vermont while his case played out.
The lawyers filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the legitimacy of Rashid’s prolonged detention after he was granted asylum. They also argued that Rashid doesn’t pose a danger to the community, given he has no criminal record, and he’s not a flight risk because he has a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country and family ties in the United States.
‘Welcome to America’
Rashid was imprisoned and tortured by Hamas twice because Hamas wanted him to join them, according to Pelcher, one of the VAAP lawyers. Rashid refused to join Hamas as he didn’t want to participate in violence, the attorney said. He managed to flee Gaza in 2019, paying an Egyptian man to cross into Egypt.
He later applied for asylum in Germany. When that asylum was denied, he decided to leave for the United States, where he has siblings and other relatives.
After boarding a ship as a stowaway, Rashid arrived in July of 2024 in Rhode Island, where ICE took him into custody, court documents show.
U.S. immigration officers interviewed Rashid and confirmed that he did indeed possess a credible fear of persecution. This interview is a preliminary step in the asylum process to determine whether an applicant has a credible fear of torture or persecution if forced to return to their home country. An immigration judge granted him asylum a few months later, in early December of 2024, after hearing his case.
“Normally, when somebody is granted asylum, that’s like winning the lottery,” Pelcher said. “Welcome to America, that’s your ticket, and that’s something that so many people strive for.”
But instead of allowing Rashid’s release, ICE filed an appeal one day after the 30-day window for doing so had elapsed and asked for Rashid’s continued detention while the appeal was pending.
Ten months later, the case is still pending with the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The Department of Homeland Security didn’t answer VTDigger’s questions about Rashid’s case despite multiple emails. ICE referred VTDigger’s requests for comment to the Department of Justice, which, according to its website, is not monitoring media requests on a regular basis due to the government shutdown.
According to Rashid’s lawyers, the reasons for the government’s appeal center on the money Rashid paid to leave Gaza, which the government claims shows support to a terrorist organization, and Rashid’s previous stay in Germany.
Emma Matters-Wood, one of Rashid’s lawyers, said the government alleges that the judge didn’t provide findings on whether the money Rashid paid to leave went to Hamas and whether that would constitute support to a terrorist organization. If someone knowingly provides material support to a terrorist organization, they are not eligible for asylum, as that violates one of the components of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
But in fact, the government has already made that argument during Rashid’s asylum hearing, according to Matters-Wood. The immigration judge responded that it seemed unlikely Rashid had paid anyone in Hamas to leave, and besides, he would have had no way of knowing exactly who he was paying, his lawyer said. The judge recognized as common knowledge that people have to pay a fee to cross the border and decided to grant Rashid asylum despite the government’s argument, the lawyer said.
Additionally, Matters-Wood said the government claims that, since Rashid is a stateless person, the judge should consider his last country of residence, Germany, when deciding whether to grant his application for asylum. The government also argued that, before coming to the U.S., Rashid was firmly resettled in Germany, which would make him ineligible to receive asylum in the United States. When applying for asylum, a person is considered to be firmly resettled when, before arriving in the U.S., the person was in another state where they received an offer of permanent resident status or citizenship.
But Matters-Wood said Rashid didn’t receive any permanent legal status in Germany, so that doesn’t qualify as firm resettlement. In asylum applications, the lawyer said, judges consider the persecution the person is fleeing, which in this case occurred in Gaza.
“This is the first case that I have worked on where someone has been granted asylum, and then the government has appealed, and they’ve been detained during that appeal,” said Matters-Wood.
In most of the cases Matters-Wood has seen, the situation was reversed, she said: Her clients were not granted asylum and remained detained while they appealed the denial.
Matters-Wood said the lawyers are not contesting the government’s initial detention of Rashid, which is standard process when someone arrives in the U.S. as a stowaway. Rather, they are arguing that his prolonged detention is unlawful and unjustified, given immigration officials’ initial conclusion he possessed a credible fear of persecution back home and a judge already granting him asylum.
According to court records, the government attorneys have argued that Rashid’s detention during the asylum proceeding, including during the appeal process, is both lawful and mandatory.
‘I just want to live in peace’
A lot has changed in Rashid’s life while he has been in detention.
Rashid’s uncle, Khalil Rasheed, who is a U.S. citizen and lives in Ohio, said Rashid’s dad died during the Israel-Hamas war. He said Rashid still has siblings in Gaza, and a mother, who is ill.
VTDigger could not interview Rashid directly because he’s in ICE detention. Instead, VTDigger submitted written questions to him through Matters-Wood, who asked him the questions during a visit at the prison.
“I’ve had family die since being detained, and I was unable to speak to them. My mother is still in Gaza, probably on the streets somewhere by now,” he said. “I’m stuck in here, unable to help them. If I had no family, I could be locked up here all my life, and I feel like I could accept that, but with my family in Gaza or alone? No, I can’t accept it.”
Rashid is the youngest among his siblings, and he decided to leave Gaza to have freedom and a better future, his uncle said.
“He has a lot of goals in his life to achieve,” Khalil Rasheed said. “He wants to be something. He wanted to be successful.”
Rashid is interested in fashion, he said, and has a background in photography. “I’d really like to work in fashion as a photographer,” he said. “I think I’d be really good at it.”
“I just want to live in peace,” Rashid said. “If I were released, I’d love to be with my sister.”
A new bond hearing
At the end of September, Rashid’s lawyers requested that he be released on bond during a hearing at Chelmsford Immigration Court. Judge Natalie Smith denied the request, saying that she didn’t have jurisdiction to consider bond, according to Matters-Wood.
Matters-Wood said this was a result of a recent Board of Immigration Appeals decision in Matter of Yajure Hurtado, which significantly limited who is eligible for bond. According to this decision, immigration judges lack the authority to hear bond hearings for noncitizens who are present in the U.S. without admission, no matter how long they have been in the country. In most cases, admission consists of receiving a visa or prior authorization to enter the country, which many people coming to the U.S. in a humanitarian capacity don’t have.
Several federal district courts around the country have found that the decision is unconstitutional and immigration judges shouldn’t consider it during bond hearings, according to Matters-Wood.
Rashid’s lawyers requested that the U.S. District Court in Vermont allows them to provide supplemental briefing on the controversial Board of Immigration Appeals decision and how it impacted the judge’s decision in Rashid’s case in immigration court.
Last week, Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford in the Vermont court denied the request for supplemental briefing, explaining he didn’t think the Board of Immigration Appeals decision applied to Rashid, since he arrived as a stowaway. But he determined Rashid should have a second bond hearing in immigration court because of his prolonged detention.
In the new hearing, he requested the immigration judge to only consider flight risk and danger to the community as determining factors when deciding whether to grant bond, according to court documents.
“If Mr. Rashid is being detained despite the fact that he is neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community, the Government is erroneously depriving him of his freedom,” the judge stated.
The judge pointed to the fact that Rashid was already granted asylum and passed criminal record checks and screening for potential national security risks. “In the absence of a legal error by the immigration judge, it is likely he will ultimately be allowed to remain in the United States,” he said.
The hearing is expected to be held on Thursday at Chelmsford Immigration Court. Crawford also said that the Department of Homeland Security should have considered Rashid for parole. In the case that the immigration judge denies bond, Crawford ordered the government to determine whether Rashid should receive parole within 10 days of the decision. The judge wrote that Rashid should not be transferred outside Vermont until his bond hearing or parole decision.
“Being detained for as long as I have, I have seen so many people in here asking for a lawyer to help them get a second chance,” Rashid said through Matters-Wood. “I am simply asking for my first chance. I don’t need a second.”
