Benazir Noorzad, 32, was preparing to board a flight to Virginia at bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
Metropolitan Airport on Thursday, October 22, when officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her into custody, her brother, Matiullah Noorzad, told MLive.
ICE’s online detainee locator listed her as held at the Calhoun County Correctional Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, as of Sunday afternoon, the local broadcaster ABC12 reported. ICE has not publicly explained why she was detained and did not respond to requests for comment from local media.
Noorzad came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship at Oklahoma State University. She applied for asylum after the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, her brother said. She now works as a human resources representative in the benefits division of Genesee County government.
Her brother said her asylum application had not been denied and that she was scheduled for an interview in the coming weeks.
Anita Galajda, Genesee County’s director of human resources and labor relations, described Noorzad as a respected colleague and said she is lawfully in the country while her asylum application is processed, according to local reports.
Matiullah Noorzad said he fears for his sister’s safety if she is sent back to Afghanistan, in part because of the family’s ties to the United States. He said he had worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and he called for her detention to be reviewed and for her to be released while her case proceeds.
Khaama Press could not independently verify the brother’s account of his work with U.S. forces. There is no public indication that a removal order has been issued against Noorzad.
Her case adds to a series of ICE detentions of Afghan asylum seekers and former U.S. allies over the past year. In March, Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, an Afghan man who had served alongside U.S. forces, died less than a day after he was taken into ICE custody in Texas.
Noorzad’s detention also comes as the Taliban continue to tighten restrictions on Afghan women. Since returning to power, the Taliban have barred girls from school beyond the sixth grade and banned women from universities and many forms of work.
Earlier this month, the United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had verified the arrest or detention of at least 52 women and one girl in Kabul and Herat
...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns...
between July and September. The cases were linked to alleged violations of Taliban dress rules, including visible hair, colorful scarves, makeup and not wearing a chador, or to appearing in public without a male guardian, known as a mahram.