More than three months after his death, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has confirmed that the agency is conducting an investigation into the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, the nearly-blind Rohingya refugee who died in Buffalo in February.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, however, is demanding more. She joins Rep. Tim Kennedy in demanding federal action in response to Shah Alam’s death.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

In a May 22 letter to Gillibrand, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility had opened a probe into the death and that the investigation was ongoing. A Border Patrol spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry from Investigative Post about the scope of the investigation or when it might conclude.

In his letter, Scott wrote that on February 19, Erie County Sheriff’s deputies contacted the Border Patrol because the agency had an immigration detainer in place for Shah Alam. Agents then arrested Shah Alam, Scott wrote, and drove him to the Border Patrol station in the Town of Tonawanda where he was processed. It was there, Scott wrote, that agents learned Shah Alam was not subject to ICE detention or deportation.

The agents subsequently “provided courtesy transport to a safe location near his last known address,” Scott wrote.

That location was a Tim Horton’s coffee shop in the Riverside neighborhood. The store’s drive-thru was open, but its restaurant was closed for the night. Security camera footage obtained by Investigative Post showed Shah Alam wandering the parking lot wearing jail-issued booties before heading south on Niagara Street. 

While Shah Alam’s family had previously lived nearby, they’d since moved five miles away to Buffalo’s East Side. Border Patrol agents notified no one of the drop off. Erie County Sheriff’s deputies also did not notify Shah Alam’s family or his attorney that he’d been picked up by Border Patrol.

In his letter, Scott asserted agents made no errors in dropping off Shah Alam when and where they did. Shah Alam, he said, showed no signs “of impairment or distress, and agents observed no disability requiring special assistance.”

Shah Alam was blind in one eye, had limited vision in the other and spoke virtually no English.

“CBP followed all applicable laws and policies, including assessments for medical or other special needs, and ensured communication in a language he understood,” Scott wrote.

Scott’s letter came in reply to a February letter from Gillibrand, written by the senator two days after Shah Alam’s death. The senator wrote that she was dissatisfied with his response and, in a June 3 letter, asked the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to conduct his own investigation.

Scott’s letter, Gillibrand wrote, “failed to provide a credible or sufficient explanation of the events leading up to Mr. Shah Alam’s death.” 

“To categorize a closed business as a ‘safe location’ at night in the middle of winter is unacceptable,” Gillibrand wrote. “Due to the factual inconsistencies with both statements surrounding the release of Mr. Shah Alam, further investigation is warranted to understand what transpired leading up to his death.”