New York Times Reports on Bard College’s Efforts to Free Ali Faqirzada ’28
Ali Faqirzada ’28 at Bard College. Photo by Aaron Schock
When Bard Baccalaureate student and Afghan asylum seeker Ali Faqirzada ’28 was detained on October 14 after a routine hearing in New York, officials from Bard College and the Episcopal Diocese mobilized their networks to help. Dionne Searcey for the New York Times reports on these ongoing efforts. “The only chance of rescuing this individual from injustice is to make it visible,” President Leon Botstein told the Times. “If you stand for the truth and for learning and all the virtues of a serious education and an examined life and you believe in the idea of justice, you have to act.”
Immediately following his detainment, Bard Vice President for Strategy and Policy and Chief of Staff Malia Du Mont ’95 and Vice President for Student Affairs Dumaine Williams ’03 visited Faqirzada at Delaney Hall, the ICE detention facility in New Jersey where he is being held. “I would describe it as feeling like a member of the family had been taken,” said Du Mont, a US veteran of the Afghan War.
The College, alongside Human Rights First and the Episcopal Diocese of New York, has worked to enlist bipartisan federal, state, and local elected officials in efforts to organize and advocate for Faqirzada’s release. Two Bard alumni/ae at the law firm Quinn Emanuel have offered pro bono legal services to represent Faqirzada in his asylum case.
Post Date: 11-16-2025
Immediately following his detainment, Bard Vice President for Strategy and Policy and Chief of Staff Malia Du Mont ’95 and Vice President for Student Affairs Dumaine Williams ’03 visited Faqirzada at Delaney Hall, the ICE detention facility in New Jersey where he is being held. “I would describe it as feeling like a member of the family had been taken,” said Du Mont, a US veteran of the Afghan War.
The College, alongside Human Rights First and the Episcopal Diocese of New York, has worked to enlist bipartisan federal, state, and local elected officials in efforts to organize and advocate for Faqirzada’s release. Two Bard alumni/ae at the law firm Quinn Emanuel have offered pro bono legal services to represent Faqirzada in his asylum case.
Post Date: 11-16-2025