""As an autistic person, it was particularly difficult to understand what the officers wanted me to do," Rahman said. "I personally experience audio sorting challenges as an autistic person. This makes it so that voices near and far are prioritized in the same way, making it difficult for me to figure out who is talking to me. Because of this, I tend to rely on reading lips. You can imagine how difficult it was for me to try to read lips when ICE officers are completely masked.""
""I am an autistic disabled person, I am trying to go to the doctor.""
""I think it's also important to point out that even someone who is not autistic would have trouble handling that situation. It was chaotic and overwhelming. There was a lot going on and it was happening fast.""
Aliya Rahman, a 42-year-old Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen, was driving to a traumatic brain injury center on January 15 when masked ICE agents smashed a car window, opened the driver's door, slashed her seat belt, yanked her from the vehicle, and took her into custody. Rahman is autistic and experiences audio sorting challenges that make it difficult to identify speakers; she relies on lipreading, which masked agents prevented. Rahman repeatedly pleaded that she was an autistic disabled person trying to go to a doctor and feared for her life because the incident occurred near where an ICE agent had recently shot and killed another person. Officers carried her away by her hands and feet.
Read at The Nation
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