Demand Justice for the Blind Refugee whose death was caused by Trump's Border Patrol

Melanie Nathan, Feb 26, 2026

A nearly blind refugee from Myanmar missing since his release from a Buffalo jail into the custody of U.S. Border Patrol has been found dead on a downtown street, city authorities said on Wednesday.

Police officers in the upstate New York city located the body of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, on Tuesday evening, a Buffalo Police Department spokesperson said.

African Human Rights Coalition Statement on the Death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam

The death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam is not an isolated tragedy. It is the foreseeable outcome of an immigration enforcement system designed to dehumanize - a system that treats mothers, fathers, disbaled, and children not as human beings with inherent dignity, but as refuse to be processed, discarded, and erased. When cruelty becomes normalized policy, death becomes a predictable consequence.

We assert that this loss is the result of intentional recklessness by CBP. Accountability cannot stop at expressions of regret. It must confront the systemic violence embedded within immigration enforcement practices that routinely disregard medical needs, human safety, and basic decency.

This case also cannot be divorced from the overt Islamophobia that has marked this administration’s approach to immigration and national security. Muslim communities have been targeted, surveilled, detained, and vilified. When state power is infused with religious bias, the risk of abuse escalates and lives are placed in danger.

Government-enabled attacks on any of our communities should alarm every one of us. Silence is complicity. Indifference sustains violence.

We must demand:

• An immediate end to local law enforcement collusion with ICE and CBP.

• State-level prohibitions preventing any cooperation that enables abusive federal immigration enforcement.

• A complete halt to ICE and CBP practices that perpetuate violence and endanger lives.

• Full transparency, independent investigations, and the naming and criminal prosecution of any officials whose intentional or negligent actions cause death.

  
  

Human life is not collateral damage. It is not expendable. Justice requires more than mourning, it requires immediate action or more people will die, including more American citizens.