Blind Man Abandoned In Cold By Border Patrol Found Dead

 

Is this the America we want?  It sure is the America we've got:

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind refugee from Burma who Border Patrol agents dropped off at a doughnut shop Thursday and left to find his way home, 5 miles away, has been found dead.

City Hall spokesperson Ian Ott said Shah Alam, 56, was found by B District officers after they responded to a call for a dead body on the first block of Perry Street shortly after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“Mr. Shah Alam was identified by the Erie County Medical Examiner earlier today and his family was subsequently notified,” Ott said in a statement.

Homicide detectives, Ott said, “are investigating the circumstances and timeframe of events leading up to his death, following his release from custody.”

“I’m devastated, and I’m very frustrated,” said Imran Fazel, an advocate for Rohingya refugees who knows the family. “We never thought anyone would experience anything like this since coming to the United States. It doesn’t make me feel safe in a country like this.”

Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee, had been missing since February 19. He was released that afternoon from custody at the Erie County Holding Center after posting bail. In response to an immigration detainer that had been placed on him, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office contacted U.S. Border Patrol prior to his release, according to spokesperson Christopher Horvatits.

Benjamin Macaluso, a Legal Aid Bureau attorney representing Shah Alam, said Border Patrol agents picked him up at the Holding Center at 4:39 p.m. Thursday.

Shah Alam was released on bail, Macaluso said, after he had agreed to a plea deal with the Erie County District Attorney’s office. Shah Alam’s guilty plea to charges of trespassing and possession of a weapon — a curtain rod he used as a walking stick — allowed him to “clear” the detainer and avoid detention by ICE or another immigration agency, Macaluso said.

After taking custody of Shah Alam, Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a Tim Hortons on Niagara Street in the Black Rock neighborhood, Macaluso said, shortly after 8 p.m. Shah Alam and his family live in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood on the East Side, according to Fazal.

Neither he nor Shah Alam’s family were notified of his release. Macaluso previously told Investigative Post he expected Shah Alam to be taken to the ICE detention center in Batavia and that his client would be released from there.

Instead, Macaluso and Shah Alam’s family spent Friday through Sunday searching for him. Macaluso opened a missing persons case with Buffalo police on Sunday, he said. 

As Investigative Post reported Tuesday, Special Victims Unit detective Richard Hy closed the case for several hours Monday in the mistaken belief Shah Alam was in custody at ICE’s detention facility in Batavia. The case was subsequently reopened.

Michael Niezgoda, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency of Border Patrol, did not immediately respond Wednesday to an inquiry from Investigative Post. Kara Kane, a spokesperson for the Erie County Medical Examiner, declined to release information about Shah Alam’s cause of death.

Shah Alam had been in the Erie County Holding Center since February 2025 after being arrested by Buffalo police. On February 15 last year, he had been out for a walk in his neighborhood and had been using a curtain rod he purchased as a walking stick.

Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso.

The woman called police, Macaluso said. When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him, Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said.

Shah Alam was charged with offenses including assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. Macaluso said Shah Alam’s family opted to not bail him out of the Holding Center for fear he would end up detained by ICE out of state.

The plea deal reached recently allowed Shah Alam to be released on bail without ICE detention, Macaluso said.

Shah Alam’s death comes just 15 months after his arrival in Buffalo in December 2024. He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Was it his color?  Was it his inability to speak English?  Was it his name or religion?  Was it his disability?  What single factor or combination led these psychopathic Trump goons to decide to abandon him in the cold in a neighborhood 5 miles away from his home?  In their tiny, lizard brains did they think it was a joke, or was the intent purely malicious? 

Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) is calling for "a full and transparent investigation at the local, state, and federal levels. The public and Mr. Alam’s family deserve answers immediately.”  We await with bated breath news of the prosecution of those Border Patrol thugs that were responsible for this inhumane act of depraved indifference, just as we await news of the prosecution of the murderers of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, and the other victims (known and unknown) of the Malignant Fascist's domestic terrorist organization.

(Image: via Mother Jones)