Award-Winning Filmmaker Arfat Sheikh Held by US Immigration Authorities
Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been detained by US immigration authorities after he was taken into custody at Washington Dulles International Airport on Sept. 24, with US officials saying he overstayed his lawful admission and his supporters calling for his release.
The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed Sheikh’s arrest and said he had legally entered the country temporarily but later “illegally overstayed his lawful admittance.” DHS said he would receive due process and that a pending immigration application does not by itself provide legal status in the United States.
Relatives and friends who are campaigning for his release from detention said in a statement that Sheikh was detained by US immigration and Customs Enforcement, which falls under DHS, as he disembarked from a flight from California at Washington Dulles International Airport.
According to a statement, Sheikh, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, came to the US in 2019 on a student visa to pursue his graduate studies in film at Georgia State University and applied for asylum in 2020.
The basis for their asylum claim was not stated. The statement mentioned that their immigration application was pending, and they had authorization to live and work in the United States.
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.”
Sheikh’s 2024 film “Saffron Kingdom” won Best Feature Film at several international festivals. With this, he also received the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.
The film depicts the Kashmir conflict through a family’s journey from Srinagar in the 1990s to Atlanta in 2019.
Both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan claim the entire Muslim-majority region of Kashmir. Both have control over parts of it, and have even fought wars over the area. India ended Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy in August 2019.
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