Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while traveling to Washington DC for an “Art as Resistance” panel, friends and supporters say.
Award-winning filmmaker Sheikh, 42, was detained by ICE agents at Washington Dulles International Airport on September 24 after arriving for an event focused on art and resistance, British online newspaper Independent reported on Tuesday.
His Friends said he was “en route to an Art as Resistance panel, which was scheduled to take place at Busboys and Poets in Washington DC” when agents surrounded him and took him into custody without a warrant, “even as he presented his immigration paperwork.”
The Kashmiri filmmaker is being held at the Caroline Detention Facility in Virginia and is due to appear before an immigration judge for a procedural hearing followed by a bond hearing on Tuesday.
Sheikh was traveling with filmmaker and author Tara Dorabji, who was scheduled to speak at the September 26 panel about survivors of torture in Kashmir. His debut feature, Saffron Kingdom, examines displacement, conflict and identity in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan region divided between Indian and Pakistani control and claim.
The region has faced an armed revolt against Indian rule since the 1980s, followed by a prolonged military crackdown, decades of violence and human rights abuses.
Sheikh said in 2024 that the film sought to challenge the lack of Kashmiri voices in mainstream depictions of the region.
“We have not been given the agency to tell our stories,” the filmmaker said. “If you don’t speak up, don’t expect change,” he said at the time, adding, “That is exactly what I am doing with this film. I am going out there, knowing it will have repercussions.”
Produced by Daffodil Studios, Saffron Kingdom has been shown at cinemas, universities and cultural institutions in the US and internationally and is available on Watermelon Pictures in more than 175 countries.
The film won awards at several independent festivals, while Sheikh was named an Emerging Filmmaker Activist at the Teaneck International Film Festival in 2025.
According to a GoFundMe campaign launched for Sheikh, he “entered the United States legally on a student visa to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University.”
The filmmaker “has a pending immigration application and is authorized to live and work in the United States,” it added.
A campaign launched by “a community of friends, colleagues, Americans, and family united to bring Arfat Sheikh home” is seeking $50,000 to fund his legal representation.
The administration of President Donald Trump has sharply expanded immigration enforcement across the US, with ICE arrests reaching record levels in recent months.
The crackdown has drawn criticism from immigrant-rights advocates over the detention of people with no criminal records, including some with pending immigration cases or valid work authorization.
Recent operations have also targeted people at workplaces, homes, airports and immigration appointments, prompting legal challenges over the scope and legality of ICE arrests.
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