Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh was released on bond Thursday.
ICE detained him over visa status despite pending asylum applications.
He faces an October deportation hearing amid widespread immigration crackdowns.
Award-winning Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been released by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on Thursday, two weeks after he was detained on September 24.
According to a statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives to free him, Arfat was released two days after he was granted bond. However, the campaign said that ICE’s deportation case against him will continue, and the next hearing for the case is on October 27.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers arrested 42-year-old Kashmiri filmmaker Sheikh at Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC, right after his flight landed from California.
Sheikh, 42, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, came to the U.S. in 2019 on a student visa for a film degree at Georgia State University and applied for asylum a year later. Supporters say his asylum case is still open, meaning he has legal permission to live and work in the country. However, DHS confirmed he was detained on September 24, claiming he stayed in the U.S. past his allowed visa period, according to Al Jazeera.
Sheikh’s debut feature film, Saffron Kingdom (2024), won the Best Feature Film at several events, including the Chicago Filmmakers Awards, the LA Film and Documentary Awards, the Melbourne Independent Film Festival, and the Wake Forest Film Festival.
The Kashmiri director was also honored with the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival. The movie focuses on the Kashmir conflict by following a family's journey from Srinagar in the 1990s all the way to Atlanta in 2019.
Earlier, in August, President Donald Trump’s administration announced that 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”
His arrest comes during a sharp rise in ICE crackdowns across the United States, with detentions hitting record highs over the summer, including roughly 50,000 arrests in July and August alone.
Since taking office, President Trump has pushed forward an aggressive immigration and deportation campaign, framing it as a necessary step for national security. Civil rights advocates, however, argue the crackdown tramples on due process and free speech.
They warn that the policy creates a climate of fear, especially for ethnic minorities, who report rising concerns over racial profiling by law enforcement.
