Where Was Nurul Amin Shah Alam?

"Six days had passed since Border Patrol agents intercepted the Rohingya refugee upon his release from a downtown jail, where he had spent a year for a police incident rooted in confusion. With no reason to detain him, the agents addressed the mistake by leaving the disabled man, still wearing jail-issue orange canvas shoes, in a darkened parking lot without informing anyone, even his family. Six days, then, since Nurul Amin, a 56-year-old grandfather despondent over broken American promises, had last been seen, and only then as a specter trudging past a security camera and into the pewter grayness of a Rust Belt winter."

"Where was Nurul Amin Shah Alam? The question hung like black crepe in his family's small apartment on Buffalo's distressed east side. Adorning the yellow walls were Islamic decorations and a framed certificate awarded by a local school to his 11-year-old son, Yassin. Beyond the front window loomed a 19th-century Roman Catholic basilica named after a Polish saint, a rarely used remnant of an earlier immigrant wave. The missing man's wife, Fatimah, and another son, 22-year-old Faisal, were meeting with two people from the agency that had resettled the family in Buffalo a year earlier."

"With the help of an English-speaking friend, they conferred on what else could be done, now that missing posters had been circulated, the police alerted, the shelters scoured. The friend paused the somber discussion to tell someone calling his cellphone that he was in an important meeting and couldn't talk. The caller said this was more important: A body had been found. Soon a photograph of a dead man was being beamed across the city to a sparse apartment brimming with dread."

A 56-year-old Rohingya grandfather, Nurul Amin, was released from a downtown jail after Border Patrol agents intercepted him and found no reason to detain him. He was left in a darkened parking lot despite being disabled, underfed, underdressed, and wearing jail-issued orange shoes, with no notification to his family. Six days later, he was last seen on security camera footage trudging through a Rust Belt winter in Buffalo. His family, living on Buffalo’s east side, searched through police alerts, missing posters, and shelters while meeting with resettlement agency staff. During a call, a friend was interrupted to learn that a body had been found, and a photograph of the dead man was sent to the family’s apartment.

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