Federal prison in Waseca faces lawsuit claiming Muslim woman forced to remove hijab for photo ID

A Muslim civil rights organization has sued leaders of the federal prison in Waseca, Minn., for violating a Somali American woman's constitutional right to religious freedom, alleging officers forced her to remove her hijab for a photo and made her carry an ID displaying the picture.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed the lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of inmate Muna Jama, seeking an order for the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca to destroy her uncovered photographs in the system's database and end the practice of taking and using uncovered pictures.

"Mrs. Jama was often threatened if she did not comply with orders to remove her hijab, including threats to cut off her communication with her children," CAIR Legal Fellow Aya Beydoun said in a statement. "The hijab is a sacred part of Mrs. Jama's identity and her connection to God. No one should be forced to choose between their faith and the ability to speak to their children."

The suit claims that while Jama was permitted to wear her hijab throughout the prison, she was required to show a photo ID that displays her head, ears and neck each time officers need to identify her during headcounts, at commissary and at other checkpoints. Every time Jama swiped her ID card, CAIR alleged, her uncovered photo appeared on the database screen for any men in the vicinity to view – causing her shame and embarrassment.

The suit filed in U.S. District Court says Jama found that officers had a hard time telling who she was by her ID card because she always wore her hijab in the prison.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Waseca federal prison, said it does not comment on matters related to pending litigation for privacy, safety and security reasons.

In 2019, Aida Shyef Al-Kadi won a $120,000 settlement after officers at the Ramsey County Jail forced her to remove her hijab and undress following her arrest for a traffic offense. The settlement with Ramsey County required the jail to institute rules on accommodating inmates with religious headwear during photo bookings, and the county agreed to destroy hard copies and electronic versions of Al-Kadi's booking photo. Hennepin County developed such a policy in 2014 with CAIR's approval that became a statewide model.

The suit says that Jama, a Somali refugee who came to the U.S. as a child, has been married for 18 years and is the mother of seven children. She's worn a hijab since she was young and has never willingly been seen in public without it. Her driver's licenses in Virginia and Washington, along with her passport, depict her wearing a hijab, and her faith requires her to always wear one around men outside her immediate family.

Jama has been in federal custody since 2016, after she and a co-defendant were convicted in a bench trial of conspiring to provide material support to the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab. Federal authorities said Jama helped organize a network of women who sent less than $5,000 to the group in East Africa. She was sentenced to 12 years.

Jama was sent in 2019 to the prison in Waseca, a low-security correctional institution 70 miles south of Minneapolis. As has been the case in every other federal prison, CAIR alleged, an officer told Jama that wearing her hijab was not allowed for her ID photo. She screamed and begged to convince him of her religious rights; the lawsuit says she acquiesced only after the officer threatened her with solitary confinement.

Jama filed a complaint with the Bureau of Prisons in July 2022 alleging a violation of her religious rights. CAIR says that resulted in Jama being brought in for a new ID picture, and officers took a photo of her with her hijab on. Then they told her they would need to take another picture without her head covering. When Jama questioned them, according to the suit, they threatened her with solitary confinement and she complied.

The filing says that a prison official claimed the second, uncovered picture was for security reasons. But when Jama lost her ID and asked for a new one, she received one with the uncovered photo. She said she saw the hijab-less photo used in the "Bed Book Count" and on the system screen while scanning her ID card. Her photo also appears on her locker in view of other people.

CAIR noted that a longtime Bureau of Prisons policy allows scarves and headwraps for imprisoned women who practice Islam and a handful of other religions, but that the institution lacks written rules addressing the photographing of women without religious head coverings.