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ICE detained Kosovo-born former CIA informant Blerim Skoro despite 2022 torture-risk protection order

On August 3, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Blerim Skoro, a Kosovo-born Staten Island taxi driver and self-described former CIA and FBI informant, at ICE's immigration office in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he had gone to renew his paperwork. Skoro holds a November 2022 federal court order granting deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture due to the risk of torture or death if returned to Kosovo, and his attorney says ICE was required to obtain judicial permission before deporting him, which it did not do. His attorney filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the detention the following day.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Elizabeth, New Jersey

Abuses documented

Actors

On August 3, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Blerim Skoro, a Kosovo-born Staten Island, New York taxi driver and self-described former CIA and FBI informant, outside the agency's immigration office in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he had gone to renew his immigration paperwork. Skoro, 55, holds a November 2022 federal court order granting him deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture because of the risk he would be tortured or killed if returned to Kosovo -- an order his attorney says requires ICE to obtain a judge's permission before deporting him, which the agency did not do.

Skoro says he began working as a confidential informant for the FBI and CIA after a 2000 arrest for drug trafficking, providing intelligence from inside a Manhattan federal prison and later working undercover from 2007 to 2009 among al-Qaeda-linked networks in the Balkans, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt. Heavily redacted FBI records reviewed by CBS News list him as an informant in an investigation targeting Osama bin Laden, and he says his work contributed to the arrests of members of the Lackawanna Six terror cell, the Virginia jihad network, and Brooklyn man Betim Kaziu, later sentenced to 27 years for attempting to buy weapons for al-Shabaab.

ICE moved to detain and deport Skoro despite the standing protection order without disclosing any judicial authorization to override it. Earlier in August 2026, the agency also deported a group of Mexican nationals who held the same Convention Against Torture protection, after the State Department obtained assurances from Mexico's government, without first filing in federal court to seek permission. Skoro's wife, Susan Skoro, said ICE officers detained him at the front desk of the Elizabeth office and took him away by car; ICE acknowledged a request for comment but did not respond, and the CIA and FBI also did not respond.

Updates

2026-08-04 — Skoro's attorney filed a habeas corpus petition [1]

Skoro's attorney, Joshua Dratel, filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court on August 4, 2026, challenging the detention.

2026-08-17 — Skoro's attorney filed an amended habeas petition [1]

Skoro's attorney filed an amended petition arguing ICE lacked authority to arrest and indefinitely detain a person granted Convention Against Torture protection without notice or process; U.S. District Court Judge Robert Kirsch ordered the government to respond.

Why we recorded this

Due process requires immigration enforcement to respect a standing federal court order, not override it. Blerim Skoro holds a November 2022 federal court order barring his removal to Kosovo under the Convention Against Torture because of the risk he faces torture or death there. ICE detained him and, his attorney says, is pursuing his deportation without judicial authorization to override that order — the same posture the agency took this month in deporting other Convention Against Torture-protected individuals without first seeking a court's permission. This archive records when the government moves against someone a federal court has already found faces torture, bypassing the judicial process that finding requires.

Sources

  1. He spied for the U.S. in the war on terror. Now ICE wants to deport him. — CBS News primary accessed August 20, 2026

See also