No One Will Save Americans But Themselves
Trump’s ICE thugs murder disabled Burmese immigrant in Buffalo, just one of the dozen or more people killed by the regime this year.
On February 19th, a blind Burmese immigrant man by the name of Nurul Amin Shah Alam was released from Buffalo Police custody after posting bail and accepting a plea deal for an alleged crime the previous year. ICE had requested a request to take custody of of him after his detention. After detaining him briefly, Border Patrol had to release him on the grounds that he was not eligible for deportation. Since Shah Alam could not speak English, agents talked to him through a translator app where he chose to accept a ‘courtesy ride’ in a van rather than being released outside the holding center to his family. Rather than figuring out where his home address was, the agents dropped off at a fast food coffee shop near the location he was arrested at the year prior. This was 8:18pm, after the store had already closed and despite the agents claiming it was “determined to be a warm, safe location.” Cameras on the building showed him pacing in front and eventually walking away through the parking lot south toward Niagara Street. The temperature that night was about 37°F and stayed around 30°F just below freezing for the next few days.
The circumstances of his arrest in February 2025 were that the police were called for a man breaking into a back yard and was hitting the resident’s shed. Shah Alam was blind and had trouble walking so he carried two metal poles. What he thought he was doing is unclear according to reports but the language barrier combined with the immediate aggression shown by the police caused a rapid escalation. The two officers yelled at him to drop the poles to which Shah Alam could not understand. They threatened and then shot tasers causing him to try to fight back by swinging the poles in their general direction. The cops tackled and beat him while he tried to resist. Seemingly at one point he realizes what is happening or just gives up pleading in Rohingya and Malay for “God's help” and tries to explain that he was just going to the store. Shah Alam was charged with two counts of felony assault on the officers, and eight lesser charge for menacing, criminal trespass, resisting arrest and others. He would spend an entire year in jail. The family was weary of posting bail as it likely would have caused him to be released into ICE custody and deported. However, after consulting with a lawyer who reviewed the case, they recommended posting bail which led to this scenario.
A few days later, Shah Alam’s attorney filed a missing persons report after there was confusion about if he had been released. The family “had been waiting outside the jail to take him home, and his wife had set his clothes out for him.” They were not notified of the transfer of custody to ICE and his release. On February 23rd, the Buffalo community rapid response had already posted about his disappearance seeking help to find him. That day, the detective working on the case opened the investigation in the morning but closed it at noon because “information was obtained that led the detective to believe that the missing person was in the custody of federal authorities.” The case was then reopened it later that afternoon. That night, temperatures fell to 12°F. It wasn’t until the following day on February 24th that outreach to the family and neighbors was organized and a search of local facilities was done.
At around 5:30pm that afternoon, a woman noticed a man walking around on Perry Street and then called the police at 8:29pm after seeing the same man lying on the ground motionless. When the police arrived, the man had no identification and was pronounced dead on the scene. The following day, the county identified him as Shah Alam and later the medical examiner declared his death from hypothermia and dehydration was homicide by negligence. It was lightly snowing that whole week with the temperature around the time of his death being 18°F. Shah Alam was found about 5.5 miles away from the location he was dropped off at 2207 Niagara Street, an over 2.2 hours walk away. It goes without saying that, despite the flagrantly dishonest statement released by DHS saying, “This death had NOTHING to do Border Patrol. Mr. Shah Alam passed almost A WEEK AFTER he was released,” this was clearly a murder. Border Patrol had full knowledge of his disabilities and were fully capable of contacting his family but chose instead to leave him on the street to die in the cold.
Though it was a miracle that Shah Alam survived as long as he did, the sad reality is that he is not the only person on the street in the winter. The city of Buffalo despite getting hit with harsh blizzards and spends many months of the year below freezing, there are still insufficient shelter capacity and resources for the homeless population. Known as the “City of Good Neighbors,” the effort of those doing what little they could to spread the word about his disappearance unfortunately failed but the greater question is; why couldn’t the city investigate a missing person faster than a lose group of activists and community members? Why is the Buffalo police department so violent and unaccountable that it ranks as the second worst department in the state? Why is the city prosecutor so aggressive to throw the book at a man who was blind and cannot speak English and to where his family is afraid to post bail?
Even worse, this comes after a string of high-profile murders by ICE in the past few months. Beginning with “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota on December 5th where ICE would begin what was called “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out.” Over 2,000 officers were sent to Minneapolis and St. Paul primarily to target immigrants of Somali decent. The primary objective seemed to be to instill fear and provoke the public as the agents were targeting everyone as many citizens were detained as well. It was a severe escalation in not only the scale of the operation but most noticeably in spectacle. Beyond their aggressive traffic stops and racial profiling, ICE truly took on their gestapo-esque character in this period. Harassing essentially everyone, brandishing weapons, assaulting people on the street, staging daytime raids, military-style invasions of neighborhoods with armored cars, and kidnapping children at school.
In January this reached a boiling point as citizens began to form alert networks and send people out to protest wherever ICE presence was reported. A few instances arose of community members getting tear gassed on neighborhood streets for protesting. All of this culminated in an incident on January 7th where a citizen Renée Good and her partner used their car to block the road in front of a fleet of ICE vehicles. The men tried to pull her out of the vehicle and the pig named Jonathan Ross fired three times through the windshield killing her instantly. The car accelerated into a telephone pole, and crashed. President Trump quickly defended the shooting, lying that Ross was in the path of Good’s car but video evidence clearly shows that is false. Agents refused to perform CPR or allow a physician bystander nearby to help. Ross was caught muttering “fucking bitch” on camera as he walked away from the scene, faking an injury from a car that did not hit him. The incident lead to an immediate response by the community as the neighborhood was filled with people by the end of the night and a vigil was held. The following day ICE also carried out a raid Roosevelt High School as students were leaving to go home they violently arrested a few individuals and shot tear gas at the other students as they predictably tried to stop them. At the same time, protests in front of the ICE facility lead to agents brutalizing citizens and tear gas being thrown at them.
Throughout the month, the city’s activists mobilized multiple large protests downtown even as ICE presence did not let up. Another incident occurred on January 24th as ICE was harassing and detaining citizens, an nurse named Alex Peretti was executed. As the thugs tried to wrestle him to the ground, they lost control and shot him to death in the middle of the street. Three days later, ICE staged a raid outside of a preschool prompting significant community backlash and people being teargassed. By this time, ICE is said to have violated at least 96 court orders in the month of January alone with the majority of cases being with citizens. At least 4,000 people were arrested in total, an average of 49 per day during the surge with the overwhelming majority having no criminal record. Perhaps seeing the abject failure of the operation, President Trump finally gave in and secretly released Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino from his position.
—to be continued…