They Left a Blind Man to Die —Then Lied About It

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Yesterday morning, my stomach dropped when I woke up to the news that Nurul Amin Shah Alam — a blind, Muslim Rohingya refugee living in Buffalo — had been found dead after being left miles from his home following an ICE detention. I kept thinking about what those last hours must have felt like. Lost. Alone. Disoriented. In a city that wasn’t fully his yet. A man who came here seeking refuge, freedom from persecution, freedom to live a life of dignity.

That grief sat heavy.

Then this morning, it turned into something else.

Because I opened Twitter and saw DHS in my replies — the official account — doing what they always do. “Here are the FACTS.” As if we haven’t watched them lie for months. As if we haven’t seen them smear victims, bury evidence, stonewall investigators, and dare the public to doubt what’s right in front of them. And now they’re trying to litigate the death of a blind man in a comment thread, as if this is just a messaging problem to be cleaned up.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam was 56 years old. A Rohingya refugee. A Muslim man. Blind. And ICE agents unjustly grabbed him, detained him, and then dumped him five miles from home in Buffalo — and days later he was found dead — and told the world they dropped him at a coffee shop that was open.

It wasn’t open. Local reporting and security footage indicate that the Tim Hortons they described as a safe, open drop-off location was closed at the time.

That detail matters, because that’s not an “oops.” That’s not confusion. That’s not a clerical error. That’s a lie designed to sanitize cruelty. A lie designed to make their story feel normal and bureaucratic instead of what it actually is: state violence and abandonment. They didn’t “drop him off.” They left him. In the cold. Blind. Alone. And then they covered it with a story that sounded safe enough for cable news.

This is why their official accounts rush into the comments and why they can’t stop themselves from spinning. Because deep down they know the truth doesn’t survive daylight.

We’ve seen this playbook already. They lied about Alex Pretti. They lied about Renee Good. They lied about agents being “injured” when the footage showed otherwise. They lied while evidence got hidden, destroyed, or locked away. They lie because the truth is indictable. And when they say “FACTS,” what they mean is: stop asking questions. What they mean is: accept impunity.

Here’s what I can’t shake today: Nurul Amin Shah Alam died during Ramadan — a month that, as far as I have come to understand it as a non-Muslim person with no background in theology, is about discipline, humility, mercy, and honoring the poor and the vulnerable. And right now, as Catholics, my family and I are in Lent. We go to Mass every Sunday. Not because it makes us better than anyone else, but because it’s how we stay grounded in what we owe other people. Lent isn’t supposed to be performance. It’s supposed to be a gut check. A season of repentance, of sacrifice, of re-centering your conscience. Both of these holy months, Ramadan and Lent, are reminders that faith — if it’s worth anything — is measured in what you do for the people who can’t pay you back.

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Ramadan and Lent are different traditions, but in my humble and unsolicited opinion, they share something basic and undeniable: both demand you look directly at suffering, refuse indifference, and choose compassion when it’s easier to look away. Both teach that the measure of a society — and the measure of a person — is how we treat the least powerful. The hungry. The stranger. The person with no agency.

So tell me what kind of country we are if we can do this to a blind refugee during a holy month for millions of Americans in this country and then argue about “the facts” in a Twitter reply thread.

And don’t tell me this is a one-off. This is a pattern. It’s why people are furious. It’s why “abolish ICE” isn’t some niche slogan anymore — it’s a rational response to an agency that has become a roaming, unaccountable militia under Trump’s direction. We’ve got reports of minors being detained. We’ve got deaths in detention facilities. We’ve got lawmakers blocked from oversight. We’ve got judges issuing orders that the administration treats like suggestions — people moved out of state, removed from the country, shuffled around like contraband before their court proceedings are even finished. Empty seats at the dinner table during Iftar. Empty pews in church.

This is not “immigration enforcement.” It is power without restraint. And it’s what authoritarian systems do: test the boundaries, normalize cruelty, and flood the zone with lies until exhaustion becomes compliance.

And let me be clear about something: this version of ICE cannot continue. Not like this. The agents who unjustly detain people, who ignore court orders, who abandon vulnerable human beings in the cold, who brutalize and terrorize communities — they need to be fired. Every single one involved in criminal misconduct needs to lose their badge. And the ones who broke the law need to be prosecuted.

Impunity is the fuel. If there are no consequences, this escalates. If there are no prosecutions, it spreads. “Just following orders” is not a moral defense — and it is not a legal one either.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam deserved dignity. He deserved safety. He deserved a country that understands what refuge means. Instead, he got ICE.

If you feel outraged, hold onto it — not as outrage porn, not as a dopamine hit, but as clarity. Use it. Call your members of Congress. Demand oversight. Demand defunding. Demand prosecutions. Support legal defense funds. Show up for your neighbors. Talk to your communities. Build or join rapid response networks. Because if we let them get away with leaving a blind man to die and then lying about a coffee shop being open…

…they will do worse next time.

And they’ll do it with the same smug confidence.

Because they think we’re stupid.

I’m not.

And neither are you.

Eyes on the ball, folks.

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