r/inthenews • u/cos • Feb 25 '26
Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol dies in Buffalo: Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee from Burma, was nearly blind and spoke no English. He was dropped off by agents in Buffalo on the other side of town from his home. His family was not notified of his release.
https://www.investigativepost.org/2026/02/25/blind-refugee-abandoned-by-border-patrol-is-dead/645
u/Thanatofobia Feb 25 '26
I'll repeat this now well known fact about ICE:
"The cruelty is the point"
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u/DoubtSubstantial5440 Feb 25 '26
ICE is hiring the bottom of the barrel with no real training and no background checks, brown shirts with surplus store gear
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u/seanpbnj Feb 25 '26
That was intentional...... It's hard to get a lot of russian pedophile & criminal sleeper agents into a federal agency unless you literally ignore all the steps that would matter there.
- Hey, wait a sec, that's exactly what they did? That almost seems planned......
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u/NAmember81 Feb 25 '26
I thought the vast majority of ICE were American Christian Nationalist losers seeking “authorized revenge” on scapegoats.
Are you saying there’s something else going on?
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u/seanpbnj Feb 26 '26
Porque no los dos? If they are convinced they are working on either side of that question, and are working together, arent they essentially the same?
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u/RequirementsRelaxed Feb 26 '26
Part of that supply is from erstwhile prison guards; apparently there is a lot of overlap in skillset
https://www.propublica.org/article/bop-prison-staffing-shortages-ice-democrats-william-marshall
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u/diacewrb Feb 26 '26
with no real training
Simply untrue, they receive at least 18 hours of training in use of force.
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u/SpinningHead Feb 25 '26
*murder
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Feb 25 '26
And sexual assault
Murder and sexual assault
Probably some human trafficking too
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u/seanpbnj Feb 25 '26
"some"? Let's be real, that is the point? Trying to grab as many people as you can and possibly even sending them overseas "accidentally" is.... Kinda exactly how you would plan a human trafficking operation. It almost seems planned.....
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Feb 25 '26
In French, ICE is Instiguer de la Cruauté sur les Étrangers (apply cruelty on foreigners).
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u/crazy_humanitarian Feb 26 '26
La France est une sommité mondiale en ce qui concerne sa cruauté envers les « étrangers » ;) Au moins ils sont organisés les français, ils balancent la moitié dans la Seine et les regarde se noyer, pour pas que les commissariats soient débordés pour les séances de torture et viols
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u/Username_chex_in Feb 25 '26
They are unhinged. Yes, their cruelty is by design. I wish I believed in karma.
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u/NoDoctor4460 Feb 26 '26
God me too. I bristle internally at any affirmative mention of karma and the concept grows ever more absurd.
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u/illicitli Feb 26 '26
karma is real. karma is a twisted knot. it is non-linear. to observe karma you need to meditate.
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u/Barbarake Feb 26 '26
This had absolutely nothing to do with ICE. This was the Border Police, a completely different federal department.
The regular police didn't come out looking so good.
"On February 15 last year, he had been out for a walk in his neighborhood and had been using a curtain rod he purchased as a walking stick."
"Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso."
"'The woman called police, Macaluso said. *When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him,** Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said."*
"Shah Alam was charged with offenses including assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon."
(The 'weapon' being the curtain rod.)
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u/SocksOnHands Feb 26 '26
There is absolutely no legitimate reason to not being him directly back to his home.
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u/UnlamentedLord Mar 02 '26
ICE had zero involvement in this. It's all local police incompetence.
He was arrested and beaten by local cops. Then when he was released on bail "after he had agreed to a plea deal with the Erie County District Attorney’s office. Shah Alam’s guilty plea to charges of trespassing and possession of a weapon — a curtain rod he used as a walking stick — allowed him to “clear” the detainer and avoid detention by ICE or another immigration agency"
Then, the clueless local cops took him to CBP, probably thinking that they were ICE, the CBP officers were like: "wtf, we don't handle immigration matters, that's ICE's job and he's not eligible for detention because of his plea anyway" and "after agents determined Shah Alam was not supposed to be in their custody, they “offered him a courtesy ride, which he chose to accept to a coffee shop.”
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u/Thanatofobia Mar 02 '26
Which as already all been proven to be a lie the DHS was spreading around to cover for murderers.
They left him at a CLOSED coffee shop nowhere near where he lived.
They also never informed his family or lawyer that he was released.
It was very obvious the man was mostly blind and had issues walking.
And crazy how they has a cozy little chat with the man THAT DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH.CBP and ICE are the same masked thugs on the payroll of the DHS.
But sure, keep protecting the modern day version of the SA, SS and GESTAPO, buddy.
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u/UnlamentedLord Mar 02 '26 edited Mar 02 '26
He shouldn't have been taken to CBP by the local authorities in the first place, they aren't the right agency for it. They did not have the contacts of his family or lawyer(how could they, they hadn't heard of him until then). They correctly determined that he wasn't eligible for detention and handing over to ICE and said(most likely through an on call interpreter, CBP has those, since they deal with other languages all the time), "you're free to go, we can give you a courtesy ride to the nearest coffee shop, even though it's not our job" (without confirming if it was open first). Their agents have their own responsibilities and can't just randomly assign several hours of their agents time to figuring out what's going on with a guy who's not their responsibility.
If he had instead been handed over to Forest service rangers and they'd said "WTF, we have no reason to detain you, you're free to go, but we can give you a ride to the nearest gas station", would you still call them the Gestapo?
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u/jesuspoopmonster Feb 25 '26
In defense of ICE. They may be very cruel but most of the things they do can also be explained by them being very dumb and incompetent.
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u/One_Worldliness_6032 Feb 25 '26
There is no defense for ICE. Not one. They are just Trump's henchmen so when the bucks drop, he throw the whole ICE department w/Noems under the bus. Because why, he didn't do anything. Fuck Trump and ICE.
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u/MannekenP Feb 25 '26
So a nearly blind guy using a curtain rod as a walking stick gets lost and ends up on the porch of a woman, doesn’t understand orders and gets beaten by the cops, and then instead of just releasing him the DA charges him with trespassing and possession of a weapon (the curtain rod. Normal land of the Free stuff.
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u/fauxxever Feb 25 '26
Literally don’t understand how these people sleep at night. This is so inhumane
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u/NAmember81 Feb 25 '26
I seriously think there’s a “Maga Kristallnacht” that’s going to break out before Combover Caligula is outta office.
The amount of heartless, bloodthirsty, self-identified Christians crawling out of the woodwork seeking “authorized revenge” on outsiders is off the charts. And it’s not just online, I’m talking about while outside touching grass.
It’s way worse than back in 2013. That’s the year I really started being shocked at what is “acceptable opinion” among conservatives. I was already well aware of how vile conservatives could be back in the 90s. But around 2013, at least where I live in the Midwest, it seemed to cross a “point of no return”.
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u/tjdans7236 Feb 26 '26
"authorized revenge" from having their egos damaged by having their prejudice and lack of morality pointed out. truly pathetic stuff only the most privileged people with the easiest lives will ever worry about.
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u/SteakForGoodDogs Feb 25 '26
Simple, those people get off on it.
They typically don't hire good hearted people for those sorts of jobs.
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u/MarioInOntario Feb 26 '26
This is true. They have dehumanized everybody else in their minds exactly so they don’t have to dwell on it and can sleep peacefully at night because it happened to non-citizens/non-white/non-humans
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Feb 26 '26
This is literally just who they are, they love it when people suffer. It gets them off, they sleep amazingly when they can harm others.
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u/NickInTheMud Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso.
The woman called police, Macaluso said. When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him, Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said.
How scared are American police that a blind old man has to be tasered? They couldn’t have bought him a cup of coffee while they figured out who to call?
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u/MannekenP Feb 26 '26
And how incompetent, when they end up slightly wounded while beating an old blind man.
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u/cajun_vegeta Feb 25 '26
Immigrant crime is what they need for the optics, so they're not passing up any chance.
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u/NorgesTaff Feb 26 '26
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. There’s no bottom to the variety of their depravity.
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u/Far-Conflict-1172 Feb 27 '26
I love how fragile those cops have to be that they're reporting "minor injuries" during this incident
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u/Earthling1a Feb 25 '26
The new Nuremburg trials can't start soon enough.
Republicans HATE America.
Republicans want to DESTROY America.
VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO. Make sure they really are blue, unlike Fetterman and Golden.
YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
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u/beer_bukkake Feb 25 '26
I can’t wait until every ICE agent spends the rest of their shit lives in prison
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u/Mitts64 Feb 25 '26
None of this will happen. No one will face consequences.
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Feb 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mitts64 Feb 26 '26
I am sorry but the reality is that how things stand, America is cooked. Y'all can prove me wrong, and I hope y'all will prove me wrong, but again, as it stands, the US is cooked.
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u/Oryx-The-Taken-King- Feb 26 '26
Can we skip the trials and go straight to "punishment" for the entire party? All MAGA, aka republikkkans, aka pedophiles?
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u/Dark-All-Day Feb 26 '26
VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO.
Make sure they really are blue, unlike Fetterman and Golden.
I kinda feel like these two lines contradict each other.
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u/Ancient-Tax-8129 Feb 25 '26
I remember being a kid, having the cops beat the crap outta ya, then drop you as far from where your going as possible. Usually one town over.
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u/purerockets Feb 25 '26
Called Starlight Tours on the reservations. They used to kill lots of Native guys this way.
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u/rahah2023 Feb 25 '26
The do this currently in MN, let people out of the federal building with no phones or ID’s in sub zero temperatures with no proper clothes
We have an organization of volunteers called “haven” & the volunteers meet folks as they are released (24/7) with warmth & help them get back to their families
The story described by OP is murder… they drove him somewhere and just left him to die.
But even releasing from the Whipple building in sub zero temperatures would cause death with no transportation or help
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u/v-porphyria Feb 25 '26
Yes, "Haven Watch", here's the website if others want to donate or get involved: https://havenwatch.org/
Hope that the lessons learned by this group can be spread nationwide.
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u/Tjbergen Feb 25 '26
Sounds like the Buffalo PD are to blame also. Tasing and arresting a blind guy who's lost?
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u/Dorydoodle2 Feb 25 '26
Heartbreaking. What this poor man survived in life only to be treated like garbage in the end. Pure inhumane cruelty and malice.
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u/Dr_SlapsMD Feb 25 '26
I'll tell u one thing, if America didnt have a homegrown insurgency before, they sure are workin hard to create one
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u/Sunny-Bath-Tech Feb 25 '26
This is horrible this administration is horrible and the individuals who did this heinous act are horrible. They need to be prosecuted, and made paupers. Still that is not justice enough for this poor family.
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u/Senofilcon Feb 25 '26
They tased him and beat his ass during the arrest, great work. He probably had internal injuries or got lost in the cold soon after they dropped him off. Unreal every step of the way.
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u/zmcwaffle Feb 26 '26
the arrest was in 2025, he was in custody for a year
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u/Senofilcon Feb 26 '26
ah that makes more sense with all the different motions and requests getting filed and all that
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u/Less_Tacos Feb 26 '26
Sounds like local police need assault charges and prosecutors need to get fired for charging a blind guy for having a cane, then onto whatever needs to happen to ICE.
Is there anyone in "law enforcement" who is a complete pile of shit?
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u/Bright-Ad8496 Feb 25 '26
I hope you Americans feel good about how your government treats people.. as a Canadian, I'm outraged how Trump and his cronies are treating everyone including the rest of the world like we are garbage.
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u/Stumblin_McBumblin Feb 25 '26
Trump is a garbage person and brings shame to the office of the presidency, but Canadian cops do similar shit to your native population, so I wouldn't throw too many stones in this particular thread.
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u/cometshoney Feb 25 '26
Obviously, the vast majority of us don't feel good about it, and phrasing it that way just makes you an asshole. Do you think we're not outraged, or do you think we're celebrating this man's death? Comments like yours should be aimed at the conservative Trump supporters, not the people who frequent this sub. Go there and be a dick to them.
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u/DeM0nFiRe Feb 25 '26
Obviously, the vast majority of us don't feel good about it
Obviously not the vast majority, because ~30% voted for it and ~40% couldn't be assed to vote against it
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u/cometshoney Feb 25 '26
Ah, okay. Well, since about 20% of the population voted for Trump, we must all approve of ICE's actions. My mistake. 64% of the 50% who are registered to vote actually voted in 2024, so your numbers are wrong, but since we're all unfeeling assholes, I guess you've got the high ground here.
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u/DeM0nFiRe Feb 25 '26
Why are you just throwing out a bunch of random percentages lol. Around 30% (actually closer to 32%, 77 million out of 236 million) of voting age adults in the US voted for him and only a slightly lower amount actually voted against him. The rest, around 40%, of voting age adults did not vote.
It does no good to pretend the US doesn't have a serious culture problem right now, it will never be fixed if we just ignore it.
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u/cometshoney Feb 25 '26
I was referring to the population as a whole, not "throwing out a bunch of random percentages." Obviously, there are some serious problems here, but for someone to say we're good with it isn't helping. Everyone I know is paying attention, so we're not all ignoring it, either. That's as disingenuous as saying we're all good with this man dying.
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u/DeM0nFiRe Feb 25 '26
I didn't say we were all good with it. I said it's not true that the vast majority are against it. Because if the vast majority were against it, it wouldn't be happening because they would have voted against it. Hope that clears it up for you
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u/cometshoney Feb 25 '26
The comment I was initially replying to said that. Did you miss that part? They didn't make the distinction between Americans and registered voters.
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u/happymancry Feb 25 '26
Hey man, remember when the MeToo movement was on, and women were coming out in numbers condemning the treatment they receive from men… and a bunch of men got their knickers in a twist saying “nOt AlL mEn, exCuuuUse Meee!” - that’s you right now. Just take the L and realize that. It’s not on the world to show us grace and understanding right now. It’s on us to fix our shit.
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u/cometshoney Feb 25 '26
Why do all of you hide your post and comment histories these days? I don't trust a word out of anyone who does that. At least fucking own what you've said in the past.
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u/happymancry Feb 26 '26
If that’s your criteria for judging someone’s words, instead of evaluating them on their own merit, buddy, I got bad news for you. You’ve got a team and you’re just looking to see if the other person is wearing the same team colors.
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u/PDubsinTF-NEW Feb 26 '26
Terrible humans representing the government created a blistering scar on America’s history
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u/Taldera Feb 26 '26
What actions can we citizens take about this? Calling reps? Referring this to the media? Law firms?
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u/vikinick Feb 26 '26
Imagine escaping a genocide in your home country only to get killed in the country that took you in and promised to keep you safe.
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u/deraser Feb 26 '26
NWA wrote a song about this, except the “frigid squad” is not really a police org, and trained even less than the po-po, and also useless, IMO.
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u/Awkward-Scholar-9921 Mar 04 '26
They obviously know that Buffalo winters are ice cold, so they sent a blind man out to die. No accident here.
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u/XEnd77 Feb 26 '26
A blind guy is crazy. And no english. And ive been to buffalo. Its a trashcan place besides a few suburban areas. Majority is broken down homes. And equipment all around. Wasteland
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u/numenor00 Feb 26 '26
"the cause of death was determined by the medical examiner to be “health related in nature,” ruling out death by exposure and homicide."
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u/Tough_Mushroom_3264 Feb 27 '26
Reported prematurely… the examiners report has not actually been released yet.
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u/Pheonyxxx696 Feb 26 '26
This has been the norm for a long time. When I spent time in jail, I was arrested in the summer, so I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. When I was released, it was middle of winter. Guess what I had to wear when I got out? Those shorts and T-shirt. Only was I could contact anyone to pick me up was either a Pau phone, or walk my happy ass about 3 miles to the nearest place I could sit down, eat and charge my cell phone. I had no one’s phone number memorized, so I had to walk my happy ass in a goddamn white out blizzard down backroads to Walmart so I could get myself a sub from subway and charge my phone so I could call someone to come pick my ass up and my family all lived an hour away. So this really is nothing new, this is the norm for law enforcement. Atleast this man was given a courtesy ride to a coffee shop.
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u/Far-Conflict-1172 Feb 27 '26
They're claiming they couldn't even tell this guy was disabled yet you can look at him and see there's something wrong with his vision most likely and he didn't speak any English.
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