Award-winning filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been detained by US immigration authorities after entering the country legally to pursue his studies and later applying for asylum, according to his family and friends.
The US Department of Homeland Security confirmed Wednesday that Sheikh was arrested on September 24, saying he had remained in the country beyond the period permitted under his admission.
DHS said Sheikh “legally entered the U.S. on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance.”
The department also said that having a pending immigration application does not automatically give an individual legal status in the United States, adding that Sheikh would be afforded due process.
According to a statement issued by relatives and friends campaigning for his release, Sheikh was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport on a flight from California.
Sheikh, who was based in Alexandria, Virginia, first entered the US in 2019 on a student visa to study film at Georgia State University. He subsequently applied for asylum in 2020, the statement said.
The statement did not disclose the basis of his asylum application but said Sheikh had an ongoing immigration case and had been authorised to live and work in the United States.
His detention comes amid the Trump administration’s broader immigration enforcement campaign and efforts to tighten scrutiny of foreign nationals seeking to remain in the country.
In August, the administration said it was working “to identify and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the U.S. claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently.”
Trump has defended the immigration crackdown and deportation campaign as necessary to improve domestic security. However, rights groups have criticised the measures, arguing that they have raised due process and free speech concerns and created an increasingly difficult environment for ethnic minorities, some of whom have raised concerns about racial profiling.
Sheikh’s filmmaking career has focused heavily on conflict and displacement in his native Kashmir.
His debut feature film, “Saffron Kingdom,” released in 2024, received several awards. The film won Best Feature Film at the Chicago Filmmakers Awards, the LA Film and Documentary Awards, the Melbourne Independent Film Festival and the Wake Forest Film Festival.
Sheikh, who is from India-administered Kashmir, also received the Emerging Filmmaker Activist Award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.
“Saffron Kingdom” examines the Kashmir conflict through the story of a family whose journey begins in Srinagar, in India-administered Kashmir, during the 1990s before eventually taking them to Atlanta in 2019.
Kashmir remains a disputed territory claimed in its entirety by India and Pakistan, although the two countries each administer separate parts of the region. The nuclear-armed neighbours have fought multiple wars over the territory.
India revoked Kashmir’s constitutional autonomy in August 2019, a move that significantly altered the region’s political and legal status.
Sheikh’s supporters are now seeking his release as his immigration case proceeds. DHS, however, maintains that his stay in the US exceeded the period authorised under his original admission and that he will be allowed to pursue due process.
