Federal immigration officials on Wednesday seized an Afghan immigrant — a father of five and former interpreter for the U.S. military — outside a U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) office, following a routine appointment related to his green card application.
The arrest of Zia S., 35, took place in East Hartford.
Residents of a New Haven suburb, Zia, his wife, and their five children moved to Connecticut last year with help from New Haven’s Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS).
They had fled Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, fearing that Zia’s work with U.S. forces made them targets for retribution.
Zia and his family arrived in the U.S. in October 2024 after receiving two-year humanitarian parole and one-time “boarding foils” from the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, allowing them to legally enter the country through JFK Airport. Once in the country, their Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applications were approved, granting all seven family members a pathway to permanent residency.
Zia was taken into custody on Wednesday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and transported to a detention facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, according to his attorney, Lauren Cundick Petersen.
Petersen said he received a signed order of expedited removal, a process that does not guarantee a hearing in front of an immigration judge.
“I’d rather someone just kill me in the U.S. than return to Afghanistan,” Zia told Petersen over the phone.
A media spokesperson for ICE confirmed Thursday that Zia was arrested but declined to comment, saying only that the case “is part of a bigger investigation.”
According to the order for expedited removal, which Zia read to Petersen over the phone, Zia was detained for not entering the country legally. “That is just not true,” said Petersen. “He hasn’t done anything to violate the terms of parole, and his parole hasn’t been revoked, as far as we know.”
Zia was at the USCIS center on Wednesday to submit biometric information for his green card application. When he exited into the parking lot, six ICE agents, some in balaclavas, surrounded him and forced him into an unmarked van.
He was accompanied by an IRIS volunteer at the time of his detainment. That volunteer’s daughter first described the incident in a Facebook post, which has since been circulated by IRIS.
Zia spent around five years as a translator for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, a role that placed him and his loved ones at constant risk. According to No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that helps resettle Afghan interpreters, more than 300 translators and their family members were killed between 2014 and 2021.
“Zia has been fearing for his life, not just recently, but for years,” said Petersen. “From the time he started assisting U.S. troops, he’s had a target on his back.”
In exchange for their service, the U.S. government promised translators and their relatives the ability to become permanent residents through the SIV program.
Zia remained in Afghanistan for several years after serving as an interpreter, but once the Taliban returned to power, his living conditions grew too dangerous. He escaped to Pakistan with his wife and five children, and, with Petersen’s help, applied for both SIVs and humanitarian parole: a temporary entry program granted in cases of “emergenc[ies],” urgent humanitarian reason[s],” or “significant public benefit.”
IRIS supported the family through their resettlement in a New Haven suburb.
“We all have to adjust what we think of as undocumented, because people are being made undocumented every day,” IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem told the Independent on Thursday. She said IRIS plans to fundraise for Zia’s family so they can cover living expenses without their father at home.
She hopes that learning about their plight will help people “open their hearts wider” for migrants who are undocumented as well.
Petersen is weighing next steps, but she hopes that ICE will conduct a credible fear interview since Zia faces threats to his life in Afghanistan.
“The way they grabbed him – picking him up with weapons and with masks, in this violent fashion – has to bring back a lot of bad memories,” said Petersen. “He loves the U.S., and he’s so happy to be here. It’s such a betrayal.”
This story was first published July 17, 2025 by the New Haven Independent.