After an Afghan immigrant entered a New York asylum office for a routine appointment last month, his family and friends cheered at the text he soon sent them from the interview room.
Ali Faqirzada, 31, tapped out a message that he had passed a crucial screening, putting him on track to become a U.S. citizen.
An asylum official, he told them, had determined that he would be in danger if he returned to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where he had worked for U.S.-backed organizations and a group that supported women’s education.
But then came another text moments later: “They are detaining me.”
The circumstances of Mr. Faqirzada’s detainment by immigration officials have become increasingly common as President Trump uses more aggressive tactics to expel immigrants, including those like Mr. Faqirzada who have followed legal procedures to gain citizenship. While some immigration cases have been thrust into the limelight, tens of thousands of migrants have wound up in federal facilities and been quietly deported without their stories spilling into public view.
But Mr. Faqirzada’s detainment has led to a flurry of activity to free him, set in motion by two powerful New York institutions: Bard College and the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
Those involved see his case as particularly compelling. In their view, the country owes him for his work in Afghanistan. In the course of helping him, they say a kind of blueprint is emerging for trying to free detainees caught in the Trump administration’s crackdown: make the case visible, work every connection, don’t engage in partisan tactics.
But not every detainee gets the kind of attention that Mr. Faqirzada is receiving. And even for him, the outcome of this high-powered effort to free him is far from certain.
Mr. Faqirzada is a computer science student on a scholarship at Bard, a small but prominent liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., led by a president who in his 50 years there has developed ties to numerous power brokers.
Mr. Faqirzada and his family have also been embraced by members of Christ the King Episcopal Church in Stone Ridge, a small community in upstate New York. After being alerted by a rector there that Mr. Faqirzada was detained, a bishop of the diocese of New York became personally involved in helping him.
“Ali is an asylum seeker fleeing the Taliban,” the bishop, Matthew Heyd, said. “His family is settled here, and he’s a student at Bard. These are exactly the kinds of folks we want here.”
In the years when a U.S.-backed government was in control of Afghanistan, Mr. Faqirzada worked for two ministries that partnered with the United States and NATO on projects including expanding education for women. At the ministry of urban development and land, he worked closely with American government officials, according to his lawyers.
The ministry, where his mother and sister also worked, was bombed as the Taliban took over, and one employee was shot and killed.
In the wake of the U.S. military’s chaotic retreat from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration allowed 76,000 evacuated Afghans to enter the United States for humanitarian reasons.
Mr. Faqirzada and his family were not among the evacuees. Fearful that Taliban members would track them down, they made their way to the Mexican border in 2022. They entered the United States illegally and immediately sought protection from the Department of Homeland Security. They were processed as asylum seekers, and then paroled and released.
The American government grants asylum, an uphill and complex process, to immigrants who can prove they have been persecuted or have a fear of being persecuted in their home countries due to their religious beliefs or political opinions, or because of other factors.
While they awaited hearings in their case, the Faqirzada family rebuilt their life in the New Paltz area of upstate New York. Mr. Faqirzada enrolled at Bard while working as a hospital security guard. To help with their finances, his family offered home-cooked, monthly meals in exchange for donations at Christ the King, which cares for immigrant families in the area.
Mr. Faqirzada’s parents and two siblings received asylum in 2023, as did another sister and brother this past August.
That same month, Mr. Faqirzada received notice that his case was being terminated. His only chance at asylum was to show up on Oct. 14 and convince an immigration official that it was too dangerous for him to return to Afghanistan. He succeeded, according to his lawyers, but was detained immediately anyway, a practice that has ramped up during the Trump administration.
Asked for comment, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, said that Mr. Faqirzada’s 2022 release after being arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border posed a “serious national security risk for the United States and its citizens” and noted that it had occurred under the Biden administration.
She said his claims would be heard before an immigration judge. A hearing date has been set for Nov. 26.
When he heard that Mr. Faqirzada had been detained, Leon Botstein, Bard’s longtime president, was appalled — both as an educator and as an immigrant himself. The son of Polish Jews who fled Nazi persecution, Dr. Botstein arrived in the United States as a toddler.
“It’s part of this anti-immigrant sensibility that is fundamentally at odds with what a university is all about,” Dr. Botstein said.
Dr. Botstein believed that speaking out was imperative, he said. But bucking the Trump administration to fight for Mr. Faqirzada’s release came with risks. The college receives federal funding; some schools that have angered the president have faced the prospect of cuts.
“The only chance of rescuing this individual from injustice is to make it visible,” Dr. Botstein said. “If you stand for the truth and for learning and all the virtues of a serious education and an examined life and you believe in the idea of justice, you have to act.”
One of Dr. Botstein’s first moves was to phone Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey, where Mr. Faqirzada is being detained, to ask for help. The two men got to know each other more than a decade ago when Mr. Murphy was serving as ambassador to Germany and Bard was establishing a Berlin campus.
Dr. Botstein also sought the involvement of one of Bard’s vice presidents, Malia Du Mont. She had served in Afghanistan in the U.S. Army Reserves and could help soften stereotypes of the college as interested only in left-leaning causes, he said.
Ms. Du Mont was at a conference at the United States Military Academy when she began receiving panicked calls about Mr. Faqirzada’s detention. A Bard alumna herself, she drove directly to the Delaney Hall Detention Facility in New Jersey, where Mr. Faqirzada was being held, to visit him.
“I would describe it as feeling like a member of the family had been taken,” she said.
She and Dumaine Williams, a Bard alumnus who is also a vice president at the college, began calling other universities where students had been detained as well as their contacts in state politics. Ms. Du Mont started with Representative Pat Ryan of New York, with whom she had worked closely on veterans’ issues.
Mr. Ryan, a Democrat, embraced the cause and earlier this week led a news conference in Stone Ridge saying, “anyone who risked their life for our country deserves our respect, support and a shot at the American dream.” Ms. Du Mont stood by his side, along with the Ulster County sheriff and the rector of Christ the King church. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and the Ulster County executive Jen Metzger have written letters to immigration officials urging his release.
Two Bard alumni at the law firm Quinn Emanuel called Ms. Du Mont to offer legal help to Mr. Faqirzada, who has also received legal aid from Human Rights First, an advocacy group.
While Bard officials worked their connections, the Rev. Marcella Gillis of Christ the King contacted diocesan officials to rally Bishop Heyd, who had been active in helping other detainees. He led a vigil outside the detention facility where Mr. Faqirzada is being held and has visited him there.
“We’re trying to make sure we don’t lose sight that people detained like Ali are real people and they are our neighbors,” Bishop Heyd said.
The diocese has been in contact with Representative Mike Lawler of New York, who was helpful in securing the release from immigration officials of a Purdue University student.
Mr. Lawler, a Republican, has talked with the Trump administration on Mr. Faqirzada’s behalf and supports “keeping America’s promise to those who bravely supported our mission,” said Ciro Riccardi, his spokesman.
As the family awaits a resolution, Aaron Schock, a friend, is organizing visits to the detention center. He and other supporters are hopeful.
“If you’re seeking safety and looking for a better life, the best place you want to run away to is a place that you trust,” said Mr. Faqirzada’s sister, Saida Faqirzada. “The U.S. was our ally.”
Luis Ferré-Sadurní contributed reporting.
Dionne Searcey is a Times reporter who writes about wealth and power in New York and beyond.
The post Church and College Leaders Work to Free a Detained Afghan Student appeared first on New York Times.
