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As an exiled Burmese poet and advocate, returning home for me means walking straight into a prison cell, into torture at merciless hands, or possibly into a coffin. Burma has been in a brutal civil war, and for over seven decades, generations of refugees have been forced out, each fleeing their own harrowing chapter of persecution. My own family fled after the 2021 military coup when my mother was put on a wanted list for being a prominent dissident. Widespread repression, from indiscriminate killings to arbitrary detentions, marks daily life in the country.

Recently, as the world becomes increasingly hostile to my community, I have been haunted by the feeling that every horizon is a wall. Last Thanksgiving, when the Trump administration terminated Temporary Protected Status for Burma, a temporary immigration pathway that over 3,000 Burmese immigrants are relying on, a friend of mine remarked that we fled a tyrant only to run into the arms of a worse one. And this captured what I felt when I learned about the death of 56-year-old, nearly blind Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam in Buffalo, New York, after he was abandoned by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam crossed the world to flee profound persecution. He arrived in New York in December 2024 as a legally admitted refugee. He and his family are Arakan Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Burma that the U.N. has described as “the most persecuted minority in the world,” subjected to what the U.S. government formally declared to be a genocide. Having first escaped to Malaysia, where he worked grueling jobs for a decade, Shah Alam was already a vulnerable man by the time he resettled in the U.S. He was nearly blind and used curtain rods as walking sticks for assistance. He spoke little English and could not read. Amid the white-out winters of New York, a man whose bones had never known the bite of cold found not a sanctuary but demise.

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He had yet to acclimate to his new neighborhood when he was arrested last year in a misunderstanding with the police. He got lost and wandered onto private property. When the homeowner called the police, they came in heavy, commanding him to drop his weapons—two curtain rods—which Shah Alam could not understand. So they Tasered him, beat him, and almost shot him, and he consequently faced disproportionate charges. He was detained for a year, as his attorneys and family were hesitant to post bail, fearing Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention or deportation, a travesty already enough for one misstep.

The day he was released after reaching a plea deal, U.S. Border Patrol agents were waiting for him. Learning that he “was not amenable to removal,” the agents dropped him off at a coffee shop without informing his attorneys or family. It was nighttime, with below-freezing temperatures, and the coffee shop was closed. His family lives miles away on the other side of town. His body was found on Feb. 24 after a five-day search. Shah Alam spent his final days trying to find his way home, alone and stranded in the dead of winter. In fleeing the regime that wanted him dead, he found a familiar state violence that did not care if he lived.

Shah Alam’s death was a byproduct of gross negligence and inhumanity. It was preventable. Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan, the New York attorney general, and several U.S. representatives are calling for investigation and accountability, and rightly so. Yet no amount of investigation is going to bring back a loving husband and a hardworking father of five children.

Even more tragic is that Shah Alam’s profound story tells only a part of the bigger trend of a rising death toll due to U.S. immigration enforcement. The fatalities in detention centers alone are on track for this to be the deadliest year in two decades. Draconian policies and skyrocketing detainee populations coupled with lack of oversight and worsening conditions in the detention facilities are driving this surge, which seems set to continue. It was for good reasons that Shah Alam’s family preferred for him to be detained in county jail over ICE detention.

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Just this week, the Supreme Court accepted review of the Trump administration’s decisions to end TPS for those from Haiti and Syria, which could decide whether hundreds of thousands of people keep their protections from deportation. Burmese TPS holders are waiting anxiously to see how these rulings could impact TPS altogether.

But hard-line immigration policies are not isolated to the United States. The U.K. recently enacted a policy banning student visas for four countries, including Burma, citing increasing asylum claims. In Thailand, where my family currently remains, the Thai authorities refer to Burmese refugees as “walking ATMs” from whom they can extort money with the threat of arrest and detention. For Rohingya refugees like Shah Alam, the journey is extremely dangerous. Hundreds die at sea before reaching countries like Malaysia, while also facing risks of human trafficking, detention, and police violence.

At Shah Alam’s funeral, his family spokesperson said, “We do not want his death to just go to waste.” I hope his story can be remembered not because of its tragedy, but because it demanded a future where people deserving refuge are not thrown into peril.

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