A prominent imam at a mosque in Cleveland, Ohio, has died in ICE custody after 215 days of detention awaiting a deportation hearing, with reports that he had complained of chest pains before passing.
Sheikh Fouad Zaeed Abdulkadir, a 46-year-old imam at the Islamic Center of Northeast Ohio and a well-respected community leader from Eritrea, passed away in ICE custody on December 14 at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Phillipsburg.
The imam was pronounced dead at 3:21 am after he had complained of chest pain. Medical staff began CPR on him whilst they contacted local emergency services, which arrived on the scene and pronounced him deceased. Abdulkadir left behind four children.
Abdulkadir, described by ICE as an “illegal alien from Eritrea,” was born on March 15, 1979, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was a citizen of Eritrea.
According to ICE, on April 30, 2018, he had adjusted his status in the United States to that of a “lawful permanent resident.”
ICE revealed that “records indicate that he has no claim to US citizenship.” However, the Shut Down Detention Campaign (SDDC), an organisation founded to shut down immigration detention centres across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, confirmed that he was a green card holder.
SDDC described Abdulkadir as a “spiritual leader and pillar of his community.”
Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest news and updates from around the Muslim world!
“Imam Fouad’s death is not an isolated tragedy; it is the predictable outcome of a violent detention system that continues to cage people for profit and punishment,” the group said in a written statement. “… No amount of ‘oversight’ can fix a profit-driven system that treats human beings as disposable, a system designed to cage people.”
The cause of Abdulkadir’s death is still under investigation. Messages left on Friday afternoon with state police at Clearfield and the Clearfield County Coroner’s Office were not immediately returned.
Previous charges
Abdulkadir spent 215 days in ICE custody as he was awaiting a hearing before the immigration court.
Before this, he had completed a 21-month federal prison sentence related to a wire fraud conviction in April 2024. According to local media, Abdulkadir had made false claims about his income to fraudulently acquire more than $80,000 in benefits from various public assistance programmes.
Abdulkadir had appealed his conviction, but the judge said he “manipulated and controlled others for selfish financial gain,” The Cleveland reported.
Despite this, SDDC said that Abdulkadir should have been returned to his community after his sentence. Instead, he was placed into ICE custody and transferred to the Moshannon facility.
Concerns over mistreatment
SDDC and various other immigration rights advocates have long called for the closure of the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, which is the largest federal immigration detention centre in the north-east of the US.
There have been previous deaths in ICE custody at the facility, such as Chaofeng Ge, a 32-year-old Chinese citizen who died by suicide in August, or Frankline Okpu, a 37-year-old Cameroonian national who died from a drug overdose, deemed “accidental” in December 2023.
Each death resulted in a lawsuit against ICE, as well as the production of a 59-page report detailing “punitive, inhumane, and dangerous” conditions at the facility.
A GoFundMe — which has raised more than $13,500 to cover his funeral expenses — described him as a “gentle guide who illuminated our paths”. The page said he died while “unjustly incarcerated, after pleading for medical care for over a year.”
