How the asylum claim began
Salah Dine Habib, a native of Mauritania in West Africa, entered the United States illegally around 2023, according to federal authorities and reporting cited by The Daily Mail. DHS says he came in near Lukeville, Arizona, in March 2023 and was later released into the country. Habib then applied for asylum, saying he was gay. That claim matters because homosexuality is a crime in Mauritania and can be punished by death. Immigration law is supposed to sort truth from theater, though it often looks like a paper shuffle with better branding.
The jail job that raised eyebrows
Habib later got a job as a non-armed corrections officer at the Jay County Jail in Portland, Indiana. The sheriff there, Larry Ray Newton Jr., hired him for a taxpayer-funded law enforcement role. That is the kind of detail that makes the public wonder whether the hiring process was a process or just a hope and a handshake. Newton said Habib started work before he married into the family, which may be technically true and still leave a lot of room for head scratching. The system, as usual, was very confident right up until it was not.
The marriage that changed the story
Habib then married the sheriff’s stepdaughter, Chelsea, in September 2025, according to the reporting. DHS told The Daily Mail that his pending asylum case is believed to be fraudulent because he applied based on homosexuality in 2023 and later married a woman in 2025. He is now in ICE custody at the Clay County Jail detention facility in Brazil, Indiana, pending removal proceedings. In other words, the claim that was supposed to open the door now appears to have slammed it shut. Federal officials say he will remain detained while the case moves forward, which is government speak for the paperwork has finally noticed reality.
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