Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention on bond after two weeks in custody. However, the deportation case against him remains ongoing.
According to Hindustan Times, a campaign organised by Sheikh’s friends and relatives confirmed his release in a statement. The campaign said authorities granted him bond on Tuesday and released him on Thursday, while his deportation proceedings continue.
Sheikh was detained on 24 September at Washington Dulles International Airport after arriving on a flight from California, according to Reuters. ICE, which operates under the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), took him into custody as he left the aircraft.
Filmmaker Tara Dorabji, who was travelling with Sheikh from San Francisco International Airport to Dulles that day, described the incident in a statement. She said officers pulled him aside on the jetway as passengers exited the plane.
“Arfat said to me, ‘Tara, Tara. This is ICE. They have come for me.’ The men were in plain clothes and not wearing any uniforms that indicated that they were federal agents. During the entire interaction, I never saw any of the men present a warrant or say why they were taking Arfat. They took Arfat Sheikh off the jetway onto the tarmac. He did not resist. I was shaking and could barely move,” Dorabji said.
The campaign said Sheikh had a pending immigration application and was authorised to live and work in the United States. The DHS, however, offered a different account of his immigration status. It said Sheikh “legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance”. The department also said a pending application does not grant legal status in the country and that Sheikh would receive due process.
In August, US President Donald Trump’s administration said it was working “to identify and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the US claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently”.
Who is Arfat Sheikh?
Originally from Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh has lived in the United States for seven years. He resides in Alexandria, Virginia. He entered the country in 2019 on a student visa to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University and applied for asylum in 2020.
His debut feature film, Saffron Kingdom, came out in 2024 and won Best Feature Film at the Chicago Filmmakers Awards, the LA Film and Documentary Awards, the Melbourne Independent Film Festival and the Wake Forest Film Festival. Sheikh also received the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.
Saffron Kingdom explores the conflict in Kashmir through the journey of a family travelling from Srinagar in the 1990s to Atlanta in 2019.
