A Somali immigrant in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, was slapped with a three-year prison sentence Thursday for telling police he wanted to kill President Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Mohamed Farah, 34, came to the U.S. as a refugee, then amassed a lengthy history of criminal entanglements, mental health hospital stays and drug use and was awaiting deportation when the coronavirus pandemic hit. He managed to get released from Homeland Security’s custody, his lawyer said.
He went on to threaten the two presidents during a mental health episode in 2022, saying in the case of Mr. Biden, he would “kill him literally dead” and for Mr. Trump that “I’m going to be at his campaign and dedicate my life to assassinating Trump.”
Prosecutors said they aren’t sure Farah meant the threats and could have been a mental “cry for help.” But with a past that includes prison sentences for armed robbery and aggravated assault and threats to kill his family and “massacre” children, they said he is such a danger to society that he needs to be in prison for a lengthy time.
Farah’s lawyer, Jonathan White, said he wants to do better in the future.
“Mr. Farah has learned a lot from this incident. He understands that this is not the fault of others, but they are his,” Mr. White told U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer Wilson. “He recognizes that he is sick and that he needs to be on the right medication plan and, more importantly, the right plan for when he runs out of medication.”
Mr. White described Farah as troubled from his early years, dating to his family’s flight from Somalia in 1992 when Farah was 2, and their homeland was deteriorating into a failed state. They went to Kenya, where they lived in a refugee camp. Farah recalled murders and torture taking place in the open, plus regular shortages of food and water — conditions the lawyer said Farah compared to Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Arriving in the U.S. in 2004 — the lawyer said they were awarded asylum, though the process he described sounded more like refugee status — the family settled in Connecticut, where Farah, then 14 years old, didn’t know the language. By 10th grade, he’d dropped out of school, quickly got into trouble, and got his first mental health evaluation.
A psychologist hired by the defense team said Farah has been hospitalized at least 20 times in the two decades since then.
Along the way, he committed armed robbery in North Carolina — his lawyer said he did it “out of necessity” — and was slated to be deported. While at an immigration detention facility in Texas, he assaulted an officer.
Released because of the pandemic, he made his way back to his family, now in Pennsylvania, but lacked the ability to get medication for his mental illness, so he turned to cocaine and other drugs, his lawyer said. In January 2022, Farah called 911 and said he was suicidal and a terrorist. He was committed to a mental health hospital and made threats against the former presidents. He also tried to escape and assaulted five employees, drawing criminal charges for which he is already serving time.
It’s not clear what Farah’s immigration situation is right now.
His lawyer said he has retained an immigration lawyer to work on getting him work permits and insurance so he can stay on medication.
The Washington Times reached out to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.