NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Massachusetts has issued a stay to prevent the U.S. government from deporting or moving a 36-year-old Afghan immigrant and former interpreter for the U.S. military whose lawyer says was detained Wednesday during a routine visit to a federal immigration office.
The order requires 72 hours of notice before the man, whose family identified only as Zia out of concern for the safety of relatives in other countries, can be moved to another facility or taken out of the country, said the attorney, Lauren Cundick Petersen.
Petersen said Zia fears for his safety should he return to Afghanistan.
Zia, a married father of five, is employed and lives with his family in a New Haven suburb.
"His employer is anxious to have him back," Petersen said.
He was picked up Wednesday by agents believed to be with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, while visiting an immigration office in East Hartford. He was accompanied by an 80-year-old volunteer, during a routine appointment related to obtain a Green Card under a program designed to protect people who aided the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Petersen said.
He then was moved to a government facility in Plymouth, Mass., she said.
Zia "is terrified about a future in Afghanistan under the Taliban," Petersen said Wednesday while driving to Plymouth to meet with her client. When she spoke to him on the phone earlier, "he said, 'Kill me here in the U.S. Don't send me back to Afghanistan,'" she said.
"He was just totally shaken. He told me he hasn't slept since he got there," Petersen said. "It is so surprising and so upsetting ... I don't think in all his interpreting for U.S. troops he was ever surrounded by guys in masks and shoved into a van."
According to Petersen, "He was going to get his biometrics taken" at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in East Hartford, including fingerprints and digital photos, she said.
She said she was surprised to see him detained because "a couple of hundred people probably go through this center" for similar reasons every day and his wife and five children had all been there for the same reason on Monday.
"He remains in a lawful parole status at this time, until October 2026," Petersen said.
ICE did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information or comment.
Zia came to this country under the sponsorship of his brother, who was already here, under an immigration pathway "that is available to anyone in the world who USCIS deems to be at risk," Petersen said.
The program "is a temporary permission," but he had applied to get a Green Card to remain under a program specifically designed for people who might be in danger because of past associations with the U.S. military, she said.
After the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, Zia fled with family to Pakistan, where they lived as refugees, Petersen said. His brother filed the petition in 2021 for him to remain under the program for people who assisted U.S. troops, she said.
Petersen is a former attorney for New Haven-based Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, or IRIS, who provided service to Zia's brother while she was at IRIS. But IRIS was not involved in bringing Zia and his family to the U.S., according to Petersen and IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem.
"He was not an IRIS client," said Petersen.
The volunteer who accompanied him to the USCIS office also is an IRIS volunteer, but went as a friend of the family, she said.
"This was a very confusing apprehension. I truly did not see it coming," Petersen said. "I was completely shocked — although probably less shocked than the client, and we're trying to sort it out."
Petersen and the American Immigration Lawyer Association's New England AILA Habeas Project filed legal papers seeking a stay about 10:30 p.m. Thursday and the judge ruled and issued the stay about 11:30 p.m.
"I'm headed there now to meet with him, to get him to sign a bunch of documents," Petersen said. "His family is not allowed to meet him for 10 days."
She said he's doing OK, given the circumstances.
IRIS' Salem said the organization "is offering support to (Petersen,) as she needs it. We had staff go visit the family yesterday."
"If he is sent back, you're putting a mark on him," Salem said, adding that Zia "has legal status. He has no criminal convictions ... The key facts here are that there is absolutely no legal reason for ICE to detain him."
The one thing she could find is that there is an executive order that states "that anyone who entered the country on or after Jan. 20, 2021 could have their status reviewed. ... I don't know if that is why ICE is detaining someone who is legally here," Salem said, but "this is the only reason that I can think of why he was detained."
Zia's detainment originally came to light in a Facebook post by the daughter of the volunteer who was with him, who said she was "boiling, boiling mad ... This is wrong, inhumane and un-American," she wrote.
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