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Zia S., who was an interpreter helping the U.S. in Afghanistan, was arrested by ICE in Connecticut. Credit: New Haven Independent

This story has been updated.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5th District, pledged on Tuesday to fight for freedom and due process for Zia, a former interpreter for U.S. Armed forces in Afghanistan who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on July 15 in East Hartford following a routine appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS.

Zia, whose full name is not being used due to concerns about his safety, was put into expedited deportation proceedings, though a federal judge has issued an order temporarily pausing his deportation.

Blumenthal and Hayes, along with Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts, who represents the city of Plymouth where Zia is being held in an ICE detention facility, decried the treatment of an immigrant who had been given advance permission to come to the U.S. with his family after serving with U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

“Zia thought he was safe when he arrived in America, the land of freedom and opportunity,” Blumenthal said during a press conference on Tuesday. “Where in the world are you safer than in America? And as it turns out, he was totally unsafe because of this administration.”

Blumenthal expressed outrage at the manner in which Zia was detained.

“For masked agents to snatch someone off the street with no warning, no counsel, no opportunity even to know who is doing it while it’s in process, is unAmerican,” Blumenthal said. “He actually worked and risked his life in Afghanistan to uphold the values and rights that are central to democracy. And for now, him to be, in effect, violated in his rights when he has fought for those rights here is completely disgraceful.”

According to Zia’s attorney, Lauren Cundick Petersen, “Zia has done everything right. He’s followed the rules. He has no criminal history.”

Petersen said that her client was approved for humanitarian parole in 2024 due to direct Taliban threats that put his life in imminent danger were he to return to Afghanistan. He came to the U.S. with his wife and children in October 2024. “The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan put a travel document into his hand with a visa pasted into it, and using these documents Zia and his family flew to JFK Airport and legally entered the U.S.,” she said.

Since his arrival, Petersen said that Zia has found full-time work and continued on with the legal process of filing an application for a green card.

Hayes said that her office was contacted by Zia’s family last week.

“They simply had no idea even where Zia was being held,” Hayes said. “I can tell you, for us, this was the first of its kind. We’ve had constituents who have been detained by ICE, but the idea that we had someone who was here legally, had not had any interaction with law enforcement, who was doing everything that they were supposed to do, who were invited to this country and escorted into the country to now be detained?”

Responding to a request for comment, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that Zia is “currently under investigation for a serious criminal allegation.”

During the press conference, Petersen said she did not know what the government was referring to in regards to a “criminal investigation” and that if there is indeed such an investigation underway, “then they would have to produce for us information relating to that.”

Hayes said that the detainment of someone like Zia represents a “policy shift” in the Trump administration’s approach to deportations.

“While we have an administration that promised mass deportations that they would rid our streets of criminals who have come to this country illegally, this is not that,” she said. “When I hear from people say, ‘get in line and follow the steps,’ when you are doing that and this is still the outcome, then what do we do next?”

Hayes also emphasized the national security implications of arresting someone who has risked their life to protect U.S. interests abroad.

“There is a fundamental erosion of trust and erosion of credibility and really a question that will be lingering: when we call on our allies and our friends for help, when we need to build relationships in community, when we need to literally have something as simple as translation in a foreign land, will people trust the United States and does our word mean anything?”

Blumenthal pledged to use “every tool available” to reverse the decision to deport Zia, including amicus briefs and votes in the Appropriations Committee.

“It’s not only about Zia. It’s about a broken system that allows ICE agents to seize someone without identifying themselves as he is in a place that he not only deserves to be but the government has asked him to be,” Blumenthal said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson as a Department of Human Services spokesperson.

Laura Tillman is CT Mirror’s Human Services Reporter. She shares responsibility for covering housing, child protection, mental health and addiction, developmental disabilities, and other vulnerable populations. Laura began her career in journalism at the Brownsville Herald in 2007, covering the U.S.–Mexico border, and worked as a statehouse reporter for the Associated Press in Mississippi. She was most recently a producer of the national security podcast “In the Room with Peter Bergen” and is the author of two nonfiction books: The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts (2016) and The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo Garcia (2023), which was just awarded the 2024 James Beard Award for literary writing. Her freelance work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Laura holds a degree in International Studies from Vassar College and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Goucher College.