Washington (GNP): Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been released on bond from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention on Thursday, more than two weeks after he was detained on September 24.
The details come from a statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives working to secure his release. It said his bond was granted on Tuesday, and that the deportation case against him continues.
According to the campaign, Sheikh was detained by ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as he got off a plane from California at Washington Dulles International Airport. His work explores conflict in his native Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir (IIOK).
The campaign also set out his immigration history. Sheikh, who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, entered the United States in 2019 on a student visa to study film at Georgia State University and filed for asylum in 2020. It said he has a pending immigration application and is authorised to live and work in the country.
DHS tells a different story. It confirmed that he was arrested on September 24, and said a pending application does not confer legal status. It added that he will receive due process.
His case also fits a wider policy push. The administration of US President Donald Trump said in August that it was working to identify and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who enter as short-term visitors and then file for asylum to stay permanently. Trump says his immigration crackdown and deportation drive aim to improve domestic security.
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Rights advocates dispute that approach. They say the crackdown has violated due process and free speech rights and created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.
Sheikh’s creative record has added to the attention around his case. His first feature film, Saffron Kingdom (2024), 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.
He also received the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival. The film follows a family from Srinagar in the 1990s to Atlanta in 2019, tracing the conflict in Kashmir through their journey.
The Department of Homeland Security said, “legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance.”
