On the night of February 19, a white van pulled into the parking lot of a Tim Hortons on Niagara Street in Buffalo, New York, at 8:18 p.m. A man climbed out. The van drove away in under a minute. The man, who was nearly blind, who spoke no English, who did not know his new address, and who could not operate a phone, pulled his hood up against the cold and shuffled toward the coffee shop’s front door. It was locked. The restaurant had closed to walk-in customers more than an hour earlier.
Surveillance video shows Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, stepping gingerly through the empty parking lot in county-issued jail booties after agents dropped him off. He pulls up his hood against the cold as he walks past the drive-thru window, then paces away into the night.[1]
Five days later, he was found dead on a sidewalk in downtown Buffalo, more than five miles from where the Border Patrol van had left him.
His death was not an accident. It was the foreseeable consequence of a cascade of negligence, bureaucratic indifference, and institutional dishonesty that has now implicated federal immigration agents, a Buffalo police detective, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Every one of them had an opportunity to prevent it. None of them took it.
Who Was Nurul Amin Shah Alam?
To understand how Nurul Amin Shah Alam died, it is necessary to understand who he was and why he was in Buffalo in the first place.
The Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim ethnic minority concentrated mainly in Rakhine State along the border with Bangladesh. They have their own language, culture, and communal history in the region, but the state of Myanmar has refused to recognize them as one of the country’s official ethnic groups, labeling them instead as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh.[2] For decades, the Rohingya have faced mass killings, forced displacement, and what the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing. Shah Alam was one of them.
He had spent roughly a decade in Malaysia, stateless, undocumented, unable to return to Myanmar, working in construction to provide for his family. He arrived in Buffalo, New York, with his wife and two sons on December 24, 2024, after being granted legal refugee status in the United States.[2] He had survived one of the world’s most documented genocides. He had finally made it somewhere safe.
His family was weeks away from a fuller reunion in Buffalo when the federal government halted refugee admissions in early 2025.[3] Three of his older sons, married with children of their own in Malaysia, had received immigration approval to join the rest of the family. The freeze stopped them.
None of that history appears to have been known to, or considered by, the agents who drove him to that parking lot and left him there.
The Arrest That Should Never Have Happened
Less than two months after arriving in the US, Shah Alam was in handcuffs.
On the night of February 15, 2025, he was walking in his Buffalo neighborhood, using a curtain rod he had purchased as a walking stick, when he became disoriented in a snowstorm. He wandered into a fenced backyard in the Riverside neighborhood, where a resident called 911 to report his presence.[4] His son later described what happened in a statement issued through an advocate: “My father was arrested because he was standing in front of someone’s house for a few minutes to take shelter while it was snowing heavily that night. A dog began barking, and the homeowner called the police. Unfortunately, my father could not understand the officers’ instructions, which led to a tragic misunderstanding. His actions were not out of defiance or bad intent, but confusion and lack of understanding.”[4]
Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to his attorney, Benjamin Macaluso of the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo.[5] Body-worn camera footage released by Buffalo police tells a disturbing story. Police approach Shah Alam in the snowy backyard as he holds what appear to be two curtain rods. An approaching officer shouts “What are you doing?” and “Put it down” multiple times. Shah Alam, dressed in a hoodie, walks toward the officers, occasionally holding out his hand. One officer says “I’m going to shoot you, dude” before firing Tasers and then taking him to the ground.[1] Once on the ground, an officer called Shah Alam a profanity and punched him in the head.[6]
He had never received the cultural orientation training that is standard for newly resettled refugees. Budget cuts had eliminated that program, which advocates say was a contributing factor in his fatal encounter with police.[4]
Shah Alam could not have known what police commands sounded like, what “put it down” meant, or that walking toward an officer, a posture of submission in some cultures, would be interpreted as aggression.
He was charged with assault, burglary, and criminal mischief, three felonies, and held for a year in the Erie County Holding Center. Two officers suffered minor injuries in the encounter.
A Plea Deal, a Bail Post, and a Family That Waited in Vain
A year later, Shah Alam’s case appeared to be reaching a resolution. On February 9, 2026, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges, trespassing and possession of a weapon. The curtain rod he used to walk was classified as his weapon. Erie County District Attorney Michael Keane acknowledged he had offered the reduced plea “in the interest of justice,” noting specifically that a felony conviction would have triggered mandatory deportation.
Shah Alam’s family had initially declined to post bail, fearing the immigration detainer on his record would result in his transfer to immigration custody. Following the plea deal, they consulted an immigration lawyer and posted bond after being advised it was now safe to do so.[7]
On the morning of February 19, family members, friends, and community advocates gathered outside the Erie County Holding Center. They were expecting to walk him home.
The family waited for hours. Shah Alam never came out. Unbeknownst to them, he had been released to federal agents hours before. His family never saw him again.[4]
What happened inside the holding center that day represents the first clear institutional failure. Because a federal immigration detainer had been placed on Shah Alam after his original arrest, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office notified Border Patrol before processing his release, standard procedure, the sheriff’s office later said. Border Patrol agents arrived and took him into custody at 4:39 p.m., according to attorney Macaluso.[5] No one told his family. No one told his lawyer. No one posted a notice. The family waited outside the building for hours while federal agents held their father and husband inside.
“When they went to the police and asked why he wasn’t coming out, that’s when they told them Border Patrol took him,” said Imran Fazal, the community leader who had spent months navigating Shah Alam’s legal proceedings alongside his family. “No one bothered to come to let the family know he’s not here.”[4]
What Border Patrol Knew, and Did Anyway
Federal authorities determined that same evening that Shah Alam, as a legal refugee, was not eligible for deportation. He should have been released. The question is: released to whom, where, and how?
Mayor Sean Ryan said Border Patrol first attempted to transfer Shah Alam to an ICE detention facility, which refused to accept him. That left agents with a choice: contact his family, contact his lawyer, return him to the county jail where staff knew his family personally, or drive him somewhere and leave him. They drove him to the Tim Hortons.
Surveillance footage obtained by the Investigative Post shows a white van pulling up to the shop at about 8:18 p.m., more than an hour after the store, except for its drive-thru, had closed for the night. A man identified as Shah Alam is seen walking by the drive-thru window and then approaching the locked door before walking across the parking lot. The van drove away.[8]
In its official statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection claimed agents had “offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop, determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address.” The agency further stated that Shah Alam “showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance.”
That statement has been contradicted on virtually every factual point.
Mayor Ryan noted Shah Alam did not even have proper shoes, he was wearing orange booties issued by the county jail.[9] The Border Patrol agents who dropped off Shah Alam appeared to make no attempt to ensure the Tim Hortons was actually accessible. The van left the parking lot less than a minute after Shah Alam exited it.[8]
The claim that the drop-off location was “near his last known address” also appears to be misleading. Shah Alam and his family lived in the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood on the East Side of Buffalo. The Tim Hortons where agents left him was in the Black Rock neighborhood, approximately a mile from an old address where the family had previously lived, not their current home.[5]
When New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof publicly challenged the DHS account, the agency reiterated its position. Kristof replied that video showed the coffee shop was closed, and that Shah Alam, mostly blind and in need of a cane, unable to speak English, had tried to walk home through the freezing cold.[8]
The Detective Who Closed the Case, Without Finding Anyone
Federal agents were not the only authorities who failed Shah Alam.
His attorney, Macaluso, spent days searching shelters, detention facilities, and hospitals. He filed a missing persons report on Sunday, February 22. What happened next represents a second, damning failure, this one inside the Buffalo Police Department.
Buffalo Police Detective Richard Hy was assigned the missing persons case. On Monday, he saw the ICE detainer on Shah Alam’s record, assumed the man must be in federal immigration custody, and closed the case. He was not in federal custody. He was somewhere on the streets of Buffalo, nearly blind, shoeless, unable to ask for help.[10]
Macaluso said Hy was working on “outdated” information and that by closing the file, he put his client in danger. The case was reopened Monday afternoon after Macaluso pushed back. “My fear,” Macaluso said at the time, “is that someone is going to say, ‘There’s a man in my yard.’ And then police are gonna show up and they’re gonna start screaming at him, and he’s gonna not respond, and they’re gonna tase him, and he’s gonna end up back in the same position.”[10]
His prediction was remarkably close to what had already happened once before. And Detective Hy was not without prior scrutiny: he had been cited by the state Attorney General in 2025 for being “repeatedly discourteous and unprofessional during encounters with civilians,” and the city had paid $65,000 to settle a lawsuit involving his conduct.[10]
Five Days. Five Miles. A Body on the Sidewalk.
On February 25, a woman called 911 to report an unresponsive man wearing a dark parka and khaki pants. She noted he had been moving three hours earlier but was no longer breathing when she passed by again. Emergency responders pronounced him dead after administering chest compressions and Narcan.[6]
Shah Alam was found near KeyBank Center, where the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres play. He was more than five miles from where Border Patrol had left him.[6] How he covered that distance, partially blind, in jail-issued booties, without a cane, in below-freezing temperatures, has not been explained.
For nearly a week, Shah Alam’s family had searched frantically. They filed the missing persons report, canvassed local hospitals and detention centers, distributed flyers, and worked with advocates to pressure agencies for answers.[2] With city cameras in the area offline due to prior vandalism, there was no real-time public record to aid the search.[2]
According to investigative reporter J. Dale Shoemaker, who first broke the story for the Investigative Post, many people apparently saw Shah Alam during those five days on the streets and did nothing, a painful irony in a city that calls itself the “City of Good Neighbors.”[11]
A Government That Cannot Get Its Story Straight
In the immediate aftermath, conflicting official statements added a layer of institutional chaos to the tragedy.
Buffalo police initially told reporters that the medical examiner had concluded the death was “health related” and had ruled out both exposure and homicide. The Erie County Department of Health then publicly contradicted that account, saying no final determination had been made. Buffalo police later clarified that officers had attended the autopsy and taken notes, but that the Medical Examiner would issue a final determination at a later date.[12] As of the time of this reporting, that final cause of death has not been released.
Meanwhile, the DHS doubled down rather than reflect. A DHS spokesperson posted on social media: “It is ridiculous to blame Border Patrol for an individual’s death a week after their last interaction with them.”[7] The agency’s position, that agents bear no responsibility for leaving a nearly blind, non-English-speaking man alone at a closed restaurant at night, in winter, without notifying anyone, has been met with widespread condemnation.
The Calls for Accountability
The political fallout has been swift, though whether it will produce any meaningful accountability remains to be seen.
Congressman Tim Kennedy formally wrote to Attorney General Letitia James requesting an independent investigation, stating: “The death of Mr. Shah Alam is a tragedy that should never have happened. A full, transparent, and independent investigation at the local, state, and federal levels is essential to ensuring accountability, restoring public trust, and delivering justice for the Shah Alam family.”[9] Kennedy, along with three other members of Congress, also called on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to launch a federal investigation into what accommodations, if any, were made to account for Shah Alam’s visual impairment and language barriers.[13]
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand sent a letter to DHS Secretary Noem and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott demanding a full accounting of the agents’ actions. “His family and the entire Buffalo community deserve answers,” she wrote.[9]
New York Attorney General Letitia James said her office was reviewing its legal options, adding: “Nurul Amin Shah Alam fled genocide and came to this country in search of safety and opportunity. Instead, his life was tragically cut short. No one who comes here seeking refuge should be left in harm’s way.”[9]
Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind, called the death a reminder of why disability-aware practices are essential at every stage of custody and release, and urged authorities to review procedures for blind individuals interacting with law enforcement and immigration systems.[7]
Critically, a local immigration attorney offered a chilling assessment of why this case may prove difficult to prosecute. Rosanna Berardi, managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law, told reporters that while internal guidelines exist for Border Patrol drop-offs, this kind of release is not necessarily unusual. “This certainly is not a unique case,” she said. “What’s unique about this is the weather, the individual, the consequence of what happened. But time and time again, local practitioners can attest to the fact that this is pretty much business as usual in terms of the drop-off somewhere.”[13] Business as usual. That may be the most damning verdict of all.
What It Cost
Deaths in U.S. immigration custody have surged since the start of the second Trump administration. Based on media reports, the number of people who have died in immigration-related custody is estimated at between 36 and 40, including 30–32 deaths in 2025 and at least six in 2026. Almost none have been examined in a way that families or the public would recognize as transparent, timely, or independent.[2]
Nurul Amin Shah Alam was a legal refugee. He was not being deported. He had committed no deportable offense. He was scheduled to be sentenced on two misdemeanors in March. His family was waiting outside the building to take him home.
Instead, federal agents took him, drove him to a closed coffee shop in a neighborhood he didn’t know, left him there in the dark without his cane or proper footwear, told no one, and defended their conduct as professional and humane. A police detective then closed the missing persons case on a false assumption and left him to fend for himself on the streets of a Buffalo winter for three more days.
At his funeral, a family friend named Khaleda Shah delivered a challenge that ought to follow every official involved: “We do not want his death to just go to waste. We want his name, his story to be a voice for those who are still suffering.”
No agents have been disciplined. The medical examiner has issued no final ruling. The investigations are ongoing.
Citations
- “Video Shows Nearly Blind Refugee Being Released by Border Patrol, 5 Days Before His Death.” WRAL / Associated Press, February 27, 2026. https://www.wral.com/news/ap/b2508-video-shows-nearly-blind-refugee-being-released-by-border-patrol-5-days-before-his-death/
- “Nearly Blind Rohingya Refugee Dies in Buffalo After Being ‘Dropped Off’ Miles from Home by CBP Agents.” World Socialist Web Site, February 28, 2026. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/02/28/evab-f28.html
- Tsujimoto, Ben. “Family of Rohingya Refugee Found Dead Describes Grief.” Buffalo News, February 28, 2026. https://buffalonews.com/news/local/article_af7da81f-0de4-440b-9ac5-e915c2026e68.html
- “A Rohingya Man Came to Buffalo for Refuge. He Died After Border Patrol Left Him at a Coffee Shop.” Buffalo News / Tucson.com, February 2026. https://tucson.com/news/nation-world/article_64c5fc77-2ff8-588d-bb01-086b74e551d2.html
- Shoemaker, J. Dale. “Blind Refugee Abandoned by Border Patrol Dies in Buffalo.” Investigative Post, February 25, 2026. https://investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/blind-refugee-abandoned-by-border-patrol-is-dead/
- “Border Patrol Abandonment of Blind Refugee in Buffalo Leads to Fatal Outcome.” British Brief, February 2026. https://britbrief.co.uk/politics/immigration/blind-refugee-left-by-border-patrol-dies-on-buffalo-streets.html
- “Nurul Amin Shah Alam: What We Know About the Rohingya Refugee’s Death in New York.” CNN, February 27, 2026. https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/us/shah-alam-death-new-york-border-patrol-wwk-hnk
- “Footage Contradicts DHS Claim of Dropping Refugee at ‘Safe Location’ in Buffalo.” Truthout, February 27, 2026. https://truthout.org/articles/footage-contradicts-dhs-claim-of-dropping-refugee-at-safe-location-in-buffalo/
- “Nearly Blind Refugee Found Dead After Border Patrol Agents Dropped Him at Buffalo Doughnut Shop.” Border Report / Nexstar, February 2026. https://www.borderreport.com/hot-topics/immigration/nearly-blind-refugee-found-dead-after-border-patrol-agents-dropped-him-at-buffalo-doughnut-shop/
- Shoemaker, J. Dale. “Border Patrol Dumped a Blind Man at a Buffalo Donut Shop.” Investigative Post, February 24, 2026. https://www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/24/blind-man-missing-after-border-patrol-dropoff-at-a-tim-hortons/
- “Abandoned by Border Patrol: Blind Refugee in Buffalo Dies in the Cold; Family Demands Answers.” Democracy Now!, February 27, 2026. https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/27/nurul_amin_shah_alam
- “Questions Remain in Death of Partially Blind Refugee, Nurul Amin Shah Alam.” WKBW, February 2026. https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/questions-remain-in-death-of-partially-blind-refugee-nurul-amin-shah-alam
- “Questions Grow After Border Patrol Drops Off Refugee Before His Death.” WGRZ, February 2026. https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/refugees-death-raises-questions-border-patrol-release/71-88b611e0-664b-4b3b-835a-b39cb7f28e91