A Somali World Cup referee was denied entry into the U.S. after CBP says inspectors uncovered information linking him to suspected members of terror organizations.
Omar Artan arrived at Miami International Airport on Saturday and was turned away despite reportedly receiving a U.S. visa just days earlier.
He was expected to join other referees in Miami ahead of the tournament, but has now returned home to Somalia.
"President Trump's administration will not allow any security threat to enter our country — full stop," a Trump administration official tells Fox News.
HAD THE WORST DAY ON SET TODAY.💔
We were finishing a skit. Good energy, everyone laughing, the kind of shoot where your body is tired but the mind wants to keep going.
I just wanted to sit down.
Something cracked. Loud. And then I was falling…
I don't even remember the in between part.
One of the crew caught me. I was gone for a few seconds. When I came back, the ceiling was above me and the pain was the kind you can't control. Flat on my back, Couldn't sit up, couldn't roll over, just there.
And then the thoughts came, A pile of them.
The MRI we don't have money budgeted for. The shoot we can't finish. The weeks, maybe, where I just lie here and watch everything I was building sit still.
And underneath all of it, the thing I've heard my content creation life
“just playing on the phone, not good enough”.
Friends and Some Family saying it like they're being honest with me.
I cried. I want to be clear about that, I actually cried. Not because I'm fragile.
Because I was on the floor of a set I scraped together, and my back had just made a sound I've never heard a body make, and I was alone with all of it in a way that's hard to explain when you're surrounded by people.
That's the part nobody talks about. You can have a crew around you and still be completely alone in what this costs.
Here's what I know, I didn't arrive at this cleanly, it came in pieces while I was lying there.
I wasn't ready to stop. That surprised me. I kept waiting to feel done, and it didn't come.
In Uganda we don't have a system that catches us when this happens. No fund. No union. No one who built infrastructure for what we're doing because nobody believed it was coming.
So we build everything ourselves and when something breaks a camera, a budget, a back, we absorb it ourselves too.
I don't want to just absorb this one quietly.
When I can stand again I want to make something that documents what this actually is. Not the highlight reel. The real cost of it, financial, physical, the years it takes from you. I want parents and Friends to watch it.
I want the people who said just playing on the phone to sit with it for a minute.
Not because I'm angry. I'm past angry.
Because there are creators in this country grinding in total silence and the silence is the thing that's actually dangerous. You start to believe what they say about you. You start to wonder if the pain is your fault for choosing this.
It isn't.
I'll be back. And I'm not coming back quiet.
Ugandan Entrepreneurs who have managed to make it Please try and Put your Stories out here People need Hope People are Loosing it and the young ones can do anything for Money that’s not the society we want #LoveUganda❤️
Grateful for life, growth, and the journey so far. This new chapter feels like peace, strength, and becoming. I’m thankful for every lesson, every win, and even every challenge that shaped me into who I am today.
Here’s to more grace, more clarity, and more joy in this new year of my life. I step into it with faith, gratitude, and confidence🥂🙏.