ICE Kidnaps Disabled Army Veteran

August 25, 2025

Zahid Chaudhry, originally from Pakistan, has lived in the US for 25 years and is President of the Rachel Corrie chapter #109 of Veterans For Peace in Olympia. He is married to Melissa Chaudhry, a US citizen who ran against Washington Congressman (D-9) Adam Smith last year.

Zahid came to the country legally and served in the US military, but has faced the threat of deportation to Pakistan for years. He sustained disabling injuries in 2003 while training to go to Iraq. He uses a wheelchair and was discharged from the military for medical reasons in 2005.

Zahid was taken into ICE detention during a citizenship interview on Thursday at the United States Citizen and Immigration Services office in Tukwila, Washington.

Veterans For Peace calls on the Department of Homeland Security to immediately free Zahid so he can rejoin his family and continue his work in the community.

We urge our members and supporters to stand with Zahid by:

Signing this petition for his release. bit.ly/FreeZahid
Sending a letter to your representative and senators. Click here to send a letter to your congressional leader.
Staying in the loop through this website, learn more about Zahid, and how you can hel
Sharing widely with your networks.

Below is a letter written by his wife.

To whom it may concern, and thank you for your interest:

Introduction and summary:

My husband Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, or “Zahid” to those who know him, is an Honorable, Decorated, disabled American veteran in a wheelchair due to injuries sustained in service to our country. He has a natural-born American wife and two American citizen children, ages 2yrs and 8mos. He served in both the US Army and the National Guard, and also served as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic in Yakima, WA prior to his injuries.

Since becoming disabled, he’s devoted himself to benefitting the community every way he can. He’s served on dozens of boards supporting local nonprofits; he’s sought-after by major foundations for his input on how to best award grants to serve diverse communities; he’s given sermons in Christian, Quaker, Muslim, and Unitarian Universalist congregations; and he’s founded multiple nonprofits including Veterans Suicide Prevention, Sustainability Conservancy, and People of Color Community Coalition. He’s a brother Mason, and has served as a father/mentor figure to American youth in the Demolay program for character development and leadership. He has renovated blighted homes, repaired people’s vehicles for free, and arranged to prevent eviction of struggling families. He is a renowned advocate for peace and serves as President of the Veterans for Peace, South Sound Chapter (Rachel Corrie Chapter). He is an honorable and upstanding resident in every way, who by statutory (legal, inarguable) right, should have been naturalized as an American citizen all the way back in 2004. He has always come to the United States legally, and he has never committed a crime here.

Zahid joined the US Army prior to 9/11, out of genuine patriotism and a desire to serve the nation he loved. He was described by his officers as an “exemplary soldier” with “leadership potential.” After 9/11, he was activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom and sustained severe injuries while deployed. By this time, due to his specialization in mental health (a prerequisite to counterintelligence work), he was sought after by intelligence agencies, who offered him great pay and benefits in exchange for his cooperation. He found that cooperation violated his moral principles. He was unwilling to just “give a name” and throw an innocent person to the wolves, as he saw it…and so he was told, very directly, that they’d make his life hell, and his citizenship wouldn’t be forthcoming.

He has now suffered through decades of legal persecution that seems to have been undertaken with the sole goal of bankrupting and silencing him. Government lawyers have spared no expense in going after him with threats of deportation based on spurious grounds. There is a well-documented policy in the Department of Homeland Security, going back over two decades, called CARRP - which is designed to cause indeterminate delays and pretextual denials (resulting in deportation) to aspiring Americans who are Muslim (or perceived to be Muslim) and who are highly capable people. CARRP has entrapped over 50,000 hardworking, law-abiding people who did everything right. According to the government’s own records, made public in the Motion for Summary Judgment filed in June/July 2024 in Wagafe v. Biden, at least 18 people have had their applications for naturalization stuck in limbo - with no pathway to resolution and no opportunity to even know what “concerns” need to be addressed - for over 20 years. According to government documents revealed during the course of Zahid’s case, he is one.

He’s also been subjected in court to the attentions of Raphael Sanchez and Jonathan Love, two ICE Attorneys - Seattle Chief and Deputy Chief, at the time - who were since criminally convicted of crimes committed against immigrants in their official capacity. It was deeply unusual for attorneys of such high position to be personally involved in a case like Zahid’s - and one of those men was convicted of stealing the identities of immigrants he deported and using them to open credit card accounts, claim them as dependents on his tax returns, and more. He targeted immigrants with high credit scores, and Zahid has always been unusually financially responsible.

Through all this - the physical injuries and disability, the legal persecution, the near-bankruptcy due to attorney costs, etc – Zahid has remained faithful to his principles and committed to his oath to protect and serve the Constitution of the United States of America. He has over 100 letters of support published on his website from community members, fellow veterans, members of the clergy of four different faiths, even elected officials up to and including US Senators. He has always and only sought what he was duly entitled to - citizenship, which he has rightfully earned many times over. He is eligible for citizenship by marriage and fatherhood, as well as long-term peaceful residence, but he claims his right by military service. He has already sworn an oath to protect and defend this country, and broken his body in service to that oath. Veterans are eligible for immediate, expedited naturalization, and Zahid deserves no less.

That is what he is claiming. No more, and no less, than his earned right.

If they disappear my husband today, this is why. The briefings have been completed in his case in the 9th District Court of Appeals, and the Court has ordered that a panel of judges be convened to hear the merits of his Motion for Summary Judgment - laying out the facts of his case and showing how he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. This move - remanding to the panel - usually indicates that the court sees merit in the arguments of the SJM. Such a move would be perceived by opposing counsel as a precursor to them losing in court.

They started issuing interview notices for this naturalization interview on August 5th, the same hour that order was filed in the PACER system (online court records). Responding to military N400s (naturalization applications) that they had sat on for years with no movement.

Further background can be found in the following pages. Melissa Chaudhry can be reached at chaudhry4congress@gmail.com and at 206-271-2240.