Mohamed Hussein arrived in Minnesota as an infant more than 20 years ago. On Thursday morning, he was taken from the United States in shackles on a plane bound for Somalia, a country he's never seen, where he knows no one.

Detained in September after he reported for a regular check-in with federal immigration officials, Hussein was transferred to a Louisiana detention center to be deported. He'd be in Somalia now except that logistical problems forced the flight back to the U.S. after it reached Senegal in West Africa.

Although he's back on American soil, Hussein remains stuck in a maddening limbo, one shared by many undocumented Somalis who came here or were brought here as children by family members, and whose risk of deportation has risen dramatically in the past year.