Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh released from US ICE detention after two weeks, deportation case continues

Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh was detained by US ICE on September 24. His family and friends said the filmmaker was released on a bond.

Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh was released from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention on bond on Thursday after being detained for two weeks. A statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives to free him confirmed that Arfat had been released from detention.

Arfat Sheikh, an award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker, was detained by ICE in September.

Kashmiri filmmaker released from ICE detention

The campaign's statement said that Arfat Sheikh's bond was granted on Tuesday and that he was released on Thursday, adding that the deportation case against him continues.

Reuters reported that Arfat Sheikh was detained by ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security, while coming off ​a plane from California at the Washington Dulles International Airport on September 24.

In a statement, filmmaker Tara Dorabji, who was accompanying Sheikh, said they were travelling together from San Francisco International Airport to Dulles that day. She said Arfat was ‘pulled aside’ on the jetway as they exited the aeroplane. “Arfat said to me, ‘Tara, Tara. This is ICE. They have come for me.’ The men were in plain clothes and not wearing any uniforms that indicated that they were federal agents. During the entire interaction, I never saw any of the men present a warrant or say why they were taking Arfat. They took Arfat Sheikh off the jetway onto the tarmac. He did not resist. I was shaking and could barely move,” she added.

The campaign said that Arfat had a ​pending immigration application and was authorised to work and live in the US. However, the Department of Homeland Security said that Arfat Sheikh "legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance." The DHS added that a pending ​application does not confer legal status in the US, and that the filmmaker ⁠will receive due process.

In August, President Donald Trump's administration said 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."

Who is Arfat Sheikh?

Arfat Sheikh hails from Jammu and Kashmir and has been in the US for seven years. A resident of Alexandria, Virginia, he 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.

His first feature film, Saffron Kingdom, released in 2024, and 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. In addition, Arfat 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 ​the 1990s to Atlanta in 2019.