Blerim Skoro, 55, a refugee from Kosova who says he spent nearly a decade working for the CIA, FBI and DEA, has been arrested by U.S. immigration authorities and now faces deportation to Kosova.

Skoro was arrested on August 3 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while attending a routine biometrics appointment at an immigration office in New Jersey to renew his work permit.

His lawyers have asked a federal court to stop the deportation, arguing that Skoro received protection from removal in 2022 and that authorities must obtain permission from a judge before sending him back to Kosova.

Skoro, who lives on Staten Island, New York, with his American wife and three children, says he devoted years of his life to the fight against terrorism on behalf of the United States.

His relationship with U.S. security agencies began while he was serving a sentence for drug trafficking.

Skoro had fled Kosova in the 1990s after the war and sought asylum in the United States. He has said he deserted the Yugoslav Army after witnessing killings and violence against civilians during the conflict.

While serving time at a federal prison in Pennsylvania between 2002 and 2006, he became close to people connected to radical Islamist networks.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Skoro says the CIA recruited him because of his background, religious knowledge and connections he had developed in prison.

FBI documents from 2004 identify Skoro as an informant in an investigation connected to Osama bin Laden. His information was described in some instances as reliable and useful for operations, including intelligence about a training camp in Syria.

During this period, Skoro says he assisted investigations involving people connected to terrorism, including members of the so-called Lackawanna Six, the Virginia jihad network and Hezbollah.

Rather than receiving a reduced sentence, Skoro was deported to Kosova in 2007.

He says that was when the most dangerous part of his work began.

In legal declarations, Skoro says the CIA instructed him to infiltrate al-Qaeda networks from the Balkans. Between 2007 and 2009, he says he worked undercover in Kosova and travelled to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt.

Photographs and videos from that period show Skoro in Middle Eastern settings alongside people he identifies as terrorists.

One of the most important operations he says he participated in was the arrest of Betim Kaziu, a Brooklyn terrorist who was sentenced to 27 years in prison after attempting to obtain weapons for the terrorist group al-Shabaab to target U.S. troops abroad.

Skoro has said Kaziu was staying at his apartment in Kosova when he secretly contacted his CIA handler and provided his location.

Kaziu was arrested in July 2009 with a rifle, ammunition and grenades.

Skoro also claims he helped intercept uranium shipments headed toward Kosova, preventing a potential “dirty bomb” plot.

In 2009, an email exchange between Skoro and a person he identifies as his CIA handler referred to Kaziu’s arrest and return to the United States.

Skoro says he ended his work as an informant around 2010 and that U.S. intelligence officials had promised him the ability to live legally in the United States.

“I considered myself a patriot of America first and a Muslim second. I wanted to pay back this country” he has said.

But his immigration status was never resolved.

Skoro claims his cover was eventually exposed and that he was shot in the leg during an assassination attempt while in Kosova.

In 2014, he returned to the United States through Canada, entering the country illegally.

In 2016, he was again taken into immigration custody after New York police arrested him for using his daughter’s discounted public-transit card.

His immigration case continued for years.

In November 2022, a federal judge ruled that Skoro could not be deported to Kosova under the Convention Against Torture because of the risk that he could be tortured or killed if returned.

The ruling did not grant him permanent residency in the United States, but it protected him from being sent back to Kosova.

Now, four years later, he is back in detention.

On August 3, Skoro had gone to an immigration office in New Jersey for a routine biometrics appointment. He says he handed over his work permit and driver’s licence, but within moments ICE agents handcuffed him.

“I went to the office for my scheduled appointment, I handed them my work permit and driver’s licence and suddenly they were handcuffing me. It makes no sense” Skoro said.

His wife, Susan Skoro, was with him when he was arrested.

She said agents took her husband into a room and then drove him away.

“They betrayed him. He’s done his time. He almost lost his life, and nobody gives a damn. He deserves a pardon” she said.

Skoro is currently being held at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey.

“I never thought they were going to betray me like this” he said.

“Please, if I die, I should die in this country so my kids can bury me.”

His former lawyer, Joshua Dratel, has described Skoro as a man who has lived a law-abiding life with his family for roughly a decade after what he described as an extraordinarily dangerous period serving the United States.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the taxi union where Skoro works, said she was shocked to learn that his legal status in the United States remained uncertain.

“I thought that given the work that he did on the war on terror on behalf of the CIA, he would have already had permanent status here” she said.

Skoro’s lawyers have filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court, arguing that ICE cannot deport him without judicial authorization because of the protection he received in 2022.

In an amended petition filed on August 17, his lawyers argue that authorities cannot arrest and indefinitely detain a person who has been granted protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture “without notice, reason, or process”.

Federal Judge Robert Kirsch has ordered the government to respond.

ICE has acknowledged a request for comment but has not provided a response. The CIA and FBI have also declined to publicly comment on Skoro’s claims.

His case comes as the Donald Trump administration has intensified immigration arrests and deportations across the United States.

Skoro says deportation to Kosova is not simply an immigration matter for him, but a threat to his life.

He claims to have spent years risking his life for the United States, infiltrating terrorist networks and helping authorities arrest people accused of terrorism.

Now, the same country he says he served is trying to send him back to Kosova.

“What message does this send to people thinking of working with the CIA?” Skoro said. “It shows you will not be protected, you will not be looked after.”