Aliya Rahman, the woman filmed screaming as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled her from her car during a protest in Minneapolis, has been identified as a tech professional and longtime LGBT and racial justice activist who has described herself online as a “friendly neighborhood deniable asset.”

Rahman was thrust into public view after video circulated showing federal agents breaking her car window and forcibly removing her on Tuesday after she allegedly blocked ICE vehicles during a protest.

The incident occurred less than a week after Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot nearby.

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In the footage, Rahman is heard shouting that she was “disabled” and claiming she “was just trying to get to the doctor” as multiple masked federal agents placed her in handcuffs and escorted her away while protesters shouted nearby.

 

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As more information has emerged, Rahman has been identified as a 43-year-old “community-focused security practitioner” based in Minneapolis, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Her career history includes work as a full stack developer and engineering manager at several technology-related companies.

It was not immediately clear how long she has lived in Minneapolis.

Her most recent publicly listed address placed her in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

On her X profile, Rahman describes herself as “your friendly neighborhood deniable asset.”

Rahman previously served as a fellow at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where her first project focused on police-worn body cameras and their role in policy.

Her biography on the institute’s website states: “Her work is informed by a background in legislative, electoral, and community organizing for racial and criminal justice campaigns, 15 years of software development for the social justice movement, and a former life as an educator and researcher working in public education and workforce development.”

According to profiles and interviews, Rahman is a U.S.-born citizen who moved with her family to Bangladesh shortly after the country’s liberation war against Pakistan ended in 1971.

In an interview with Tech for Social Justice, she said she was influenced by what she described as the “revolutionary energy” of her childhood there.

“I got to see a country being put together. I grew up seeing garment workers, who were almost all women, protesting on the street,” she said.

Rahman told the outlet that by the age of six she knew she was “definitely different” and later identified as “genderqueer” while living in a country where homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment.

She said she returned to the United States for college after determining she “probably shouldn’t stay” in Bangladesh while navigating her identity.

She was beginning her junior year of college when the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred.

Rahman told Tech for Social Justice that two of her cousins were killed in the Twin Towers.

She described the attacks as “a really important moment” that pushed her “to dig deeply into US social movements and understanding what race means” in the United States compared to Bangladesh.

Rahman said she observed in Indiana that “brown folks are used against Black people” and said her involvement in organizing intensified as she entered a relationship with a transgender man.

“Since college, Aliya had taken part-time positions with and volunteer roles for LGBT and racial justice organizations,” her profile stated.

Over the years, Rahman has worked with or supported a range of advocacy and nonprofit groups, including the Center for Community Change, Equality Ohio, and Code for Progress.

She has also publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement and pro-Palestinian causes on social media.

Rahman served as director of movement technology at Wellstone, a Minnesota-based nonprofit described in her profile as training progressive activists and political leaders.

She stated that she shifted the organization’s image from what she called a “nice, white people-run organization” to one she described as “mostly queer, largely immigrant and overwhelmingly femme-identified or gender nonconforming.”

Her educational background includes a master’s degree in science from Purdue University in Indiana, according to LinkedIn.

She also holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional license.

After completing her undergraduate education, Rahman spent several years teaching at public high schools on a Native American reservation in Arizona before returning to advocacy work.

Details about Rahman’s background became public after ICE agents accused her of impeding an immigration enforcement operation on a suburban street Tuesday.

Video showed agents ordering her to move her vehicle as they attempted to clear protesters from the area.

One agent was filmed smashing the passenger-side window while another appeared to unlock the driver’s side door.

As Rahman was pulled from the car, protesters could be heard yelling “Stop,” “That’s so f**ked up,” and “All you do is hurt.”

She was handcuffed and taken away.

It was not immediately clear whether she was charged following the incident.

Public records show Rahman has had several minor encounters with law enforcement more than a decade ago.

She pleaded guilty to criminal trespassing and driving under the influence in separate Ohio cases and was charged with driving without insurance in Illinois.

In the DUI case, records show she was also found guilty of following too closely, stopping improperly at a stop sign, criminal trespassing, and disorderly conduct.

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