Jonathan P. Baird

During the Trump years, I often have heard the phrase “the cruelty is the point”. I thought of that phrase when I heard the story of Nurul Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee who lived in Buffalo, New York. Shah Alam was found dead on the street on February 24, five days after he was left at a donut shop by Border Patrol agents.

Shah Alam was 56, nearly blind and non-English speaking. His family is Arakan Rohingya refugees. They had fled genocide in Burma (Myanmar) and came to the U.S. on Christmas Eve 2024 in search of safety and opportunity. Shah Alam was legally in the United States.

The genocide against the Muslim Rohingya people is not well-known but it was a systematic process of killings, sexual violence and destruction of villages. In 2022, the U.S. government determined that the Myanmar military had committed genocide against the Rohingyas. Shah Alam had previously worked in construction in Malaysia where he lived for ten years after fleeing his home country. He had a wife and two sons, He could not read, write or use electronic devices.

Refugee status is not easy to achieve. Applicants must demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. They must be unable or unwilling to return to their home country due to this fear. They must pass strict security screenings. It was not easy for Shah Alam (or any refugee) to obtain refugee status.

Problems for Shah Alam in the United States started in February 2025. With his health challenges, he needed a walking stick to get around. He went to a nearby shop that sold curtain rods where he made a purchase. He used the rod for balance and to help him navigate the neighborhood. He had no vision in one eye and partial blurry vision in his other eye.

Apparently he got lost and was disoriented after he went for a walk February a year ago. He sat down on a porch just as the owner of the home was letting her dog out. According to Shah Alam’s legal aid lawyer, the dog freaked out and so did Shah Alam. He came from a place where people did not keep dogs. The owner called police and she told them there was an unidentified black man in her driveway.

When the police arrived, they ordered Shah Alam to drop his curtain rods but he did not understand them. When he didn’t comply, the two officers tasered him. They then tackled him and punched him in the head repeatedly. It would appear the whole incident was a misunderstanding with police officers.

The authorities indicted Shah Alam on felony assault, burglary and criminal mischief charges. The charges were absurd over-charging but they reflect a situation that is not unusual for disabled people of color who interact with the police. There was no effort by the police to understand Shah Alam.

Instead of getting bailed out, he spent a year in custody. Considering what he did, that alone was a disproportionate travesty. His lawyer said it took him that long to negotiate a plea deal where he was certain Shah Alam wouldn’t be deported by ICE when he was released. Shah Alam pled guilty to misdemeanor charges, trespassing and possession of a weapon (the curtain rod walking stick).

The Erie County District Attorney said his office reduced charges after considering Shah Alam’s medical condition, time served and the “significant collateral consequences that would result from a felony conviction – including mandatory deportation”.

The circumstances around what happened next are contested. At the time of his release from Buffalo police custody, a Border Patrol agent drove him to an ICE facility but ICE didn’t want him. They found out he was in the country legally and he couldn’t be deported. Border Patrol had no protocol for what to do with a disabled man who didn’t speak English and who was confused and lost. Border Patrol said that on February 19 Shah Alam accepted a “courtesy ride” to a Tim Horton’s coffee shop. They said it was “a warm safe location”.

Border Patrol’s story quickly fell apart. There was a video that showed except for the drive through, Tim Horton’s had closed before Border Patrol dropped Shah Alam off on the evening of the 19th. No one in authority called Shah Alam’s family or his lawyer to explain that he had been released. There was no coordinated pickup. Surveillance footage showed him wearing orange booties issued by the jail. He was wearing a hoodie with no overcoat, not appropriate attire for the dead of winter in Buffalo.

On February 24, Shah Alam’s body was discovered on a Buffalo street six miles from the Tim Horton’s where he had been left.

Shah Alam could not use a phone, didn’t know phone numbers, couldn’t communicate in English, could barely see and was mobility-impaired. There was no attempt to reckon with his disability, his language, or his mental state. Whether it was incompetence, indifference, malice, racism or xenophobia on the part of ICE and Border Patrol, a most vulnerable man is needlessly dead.

There has been a pattern of ICE and Border Patrol releasing those they have detained in a deliberately uncaring manner. They have often released people late at night and in unfamiliar locations far from their homes after they have flown people to distant detention locations. People are released with the clothes they were wearing when picked up but ICE does not return their phones, their cash or their personal ID. They don’t provide coats in frigid weather.

In Minneapolis, locals have created an organization, Haven Watch, to help those who were detained and then released in freezing weather. Haven Watch monitors federal detention facilities and provides coats, transport, and help in getting people who were detained back to their loved ones.

Shah Alam’s death was entirely preventable. To call it a government failure is not enough. A duty of care was breached. This is a case study in inhumanity. Members of Congress and New York’s Attorney General Letitia James have called for state and federal investigations into what happened.