Former Portlander challenges previous No Fly List placement before Supreme Court

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A former Portland man who believes he was wrongfully placed on the no-fly list has taken his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to court documents, Yonas Fikre first learned he was on the no-fly list during a business trip in 2010. The man, who is a U.S. resident of Eritrean descent, alleged that he was in Sudan's U.S. Embassy when two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents questioned his connection to a mosque in his previous home of Portland.

During the ensuing interrogation, attorneys said the agents told Fikre that he was placed on the no-fly list and indicated that he would be removed if he decided to be an informant. Fikre declined the offer, and months later, was arrested and imprisoned during a business trip to the United Arab Emirates.

Court documents claimed UAE police tortured the man, continuing to question his involvement with the Portland mosque. Fikre was later released from UAE police custody, before flying to Sweden to apply for asylum. There, he also attempted to change his no-fly-list status through the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program.

Fikre officially filed his lawsuit against the FBI in 2013, when he alleged U.S. officials “violated his substantive and procedural due process rights under the Fifth Amendment by including him on the No Fly List and providing inadequate means for him to challenge that designation.”

While litigation was pending, the Transportation Security Administration notified the plaintiff he was still on the list in January 2014 and March 2015. But that same year, Fikre was able to return to Portland on a private jet arranged by the Swedish government.

The following year, U.S. officials filed a notice that he had been removed from the no-fly list. That notice made it so Fikre’s initial complaint was “moot,” or otherwise dismissed.

However, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that Fikre’s case shouldn’t be dismissed because officials failed to explain why he had been placed on the list in the first place, and whether he would be on the list again in the future.

“Perhaps [Fikre] attended the wrong lectures, purchased the wrong books, or browsed the wrong websites,” the court brief brief reads. “He has no way of knowing because the government has not told him; thus he may unwittingly repeat the same type of actions deemed
suspicious and end up back on the list for the same reasons.”

Fikre’s case was presented before the Supreme Court on Monday. The FBI argued that there "isn't a live case for controversy any longer."