Congressman Tim Kennedy sent a formal letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Tuesday, demanding a full federal investigation into the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee who died in Buffalo this past February.
Shah Alam was nearly blind, spoke a rare dialect, and had no way to communicate in English. According to reports, he was dropped off by federal authorities at a Tim Hortons on Niagara Street — one that was closed — in the middle of winter. Kennedy's letter points to serious holes in the DHS's version of events.
"A man who fled persecution was abandoned in the dead of winter to fend for himself," Kennedy said, framing what happened not as a one-time failure but as a reflection of a broader culture within federal immigration enforcement. Kennedy is demanding a full accounting of the timeline, policy transparency, and concrete steps to make sure nothing like this happens again in Western New York.