Rising Questions of Safety Amid ICE Arrests

Recent headlines have consistently flashed the same three letters: I. C. E. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now infamous to much of the public, has received increased attention during the past year due to its increase in abrupt seizures of individuals and families. 

On Oct. 14, Ali Faqirzada, a Bard College student and Afghan refugee, was detained. He is said to have worked with “U.S. forces fighting the Taliban” before he and his family left Afghanistan to seek asylum in the U.S. 

Congressman Pat Ryan (D, N.Y.-18) rallied the community in Stone Ridge, N.Y., to raise awareness and fight for the release of Faqirzada. Ryan noted that “Farqizada’s story is exactly what [the] asylum process in the United States is all about,” according to Mid Hudson News.

Many members of his community, including friends and family of Farqizada, Bard classmates and faculty and local faith leaders, have joined together and publicly defended Farqizada as a kind and hardworking member of the community, also expressing confusion at why he has received such treatment. 

With no proclaimed reason for his detention, Farqizada has remained detained since October with no promise of release. Many worry about the possibility of him being sent back to Afghanistan, where he will ultimately face the Taliban, whom he came to America to flee after working alongside the U.S. to rebuild democracy in his country.

In response to this news, Senior Director of Legal Strategy for Refugee Programs at Human Rights First, Anwen Hughes, stated, “He came here seeking safety. Instead, he’s been treated like a criminal.”

This raises a question of what prompts ICE to arrest and detain so many individuals who pose no obvious threat to their communities or the nation at large and are following proper legal procedures to ensure their prolonged stay within US borders. 

Pat Ryan has “enlisted Republican colleagues to make calls on Faqirzada’s behalf in order to escalate our calls for justice,” according to Mid-Hudson News. These actions imply a unilateral effort against what he deems to be unjust, surpassing possible partisan divides. 

Farqizada’s detention serves as a reminder of the reality of recent events in the nation: we are not as removed and distant from them as we may think.