By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh was released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention on bond on Thursday after being detained on September 24, according to a statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives to free him.
Sheikh, whose work has explored conflict in his native India-administered Kashmir, was detained by ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, while coming off a plane from California at the Washington Dulles International Airport, the campaign said.
It said Sheikh’s bond was granted on Tuesday and he was released on Thursday, adding that the deportation case against him continues.
The campaign said Sheikh, who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, entered the US in 2019 on a student visa to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University and filed for asylum in 2020. The campaign said he had a pending immigration application and was authorized to work and live in the US.
DHS said on Wednesday Sheikh was arrested on September 24. It said Sheikh “legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance.” A pending application does not confer legal status in the US, DHS said, adding he will receive due process.
President Donald Trump’s administration said in August 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.”
Trump has pursued an immigration crackdown and deportation drive that he says aims to improve domestic security. Rights advocates 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 first feature film, 2024’s “Saffron Kingdom,” 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, who hails from India-administered Kashmir, won the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.
The film explored conflict in Kashmir through the journey of a family from Srinagar in India-administered Kashmir in the 1990s to Atlanta in 2019.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is claimed in full by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, but each control only part of it and have fought wars over the territory. India revoked Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy in August 2019.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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