It is not true he has "never broken any US laws", although he did indeed commit most of his criminal career in fraud and theft in Australia before they finally denied him citizenship. He is a serial fraudster, a passport thief, and a credit card thief. He is a "veteran" who immediately claimed disability in boot camp and subsequently enjoyed half a million dollars in veteran's benefits (and never repaid an $80,000 mortgage reduction grant). If I did these things in Pakistan, would they allow me to stay? Would anyone have sympathy for me if I kept lying to them and taking advantage of them and stealing from them and had to go back to my home country? We should do the same.

Hope he catches a break and gets out. He can get deported without being in custody.

"Based on court documentation and emails between Rep. Adam Smith’s office, USCIS, and ICE that Zahid’s family obtained after he was taken, the alleged interview appears to have been a vehicle to arrest him."

'Chaudhry doesn’t see losing Smith as a “risk.” Smith, funded by war profiteers, big tech surveillance, and what Open Secrets calls the “Israel industry,” has “never used his position to meaningfully stand for peace,” Chaudhry said in a follow up email.' (https://www.thestranger.com/news/2024/06/10/79552806/the-pro-palestine-challengers)

Has Ms. Chaudhry's opinion of Rep. Adam Smith changed any of late? I do wish the Stranger would let us know.

@2, well, I don't know. A Pakistani national illegally residing in the country with a lengthy record of fraud offenses spanning the globe should probably expect to be held for a little while before he is removed.

From the link @3: '“Smith seems to be deeply blind to the fact that the United States has immense leverage and power [over Israel] and responsibility in this situation,” Chaudhry said in a phone interview. “It is our weapons that are being dropped. And if we were to threaten to cut off those weapons, if we were to actually properly cut off those weapons in accordance with international law, in accordance with our own laws, then we'd be doing the morally right thing, and the Palestinians would stop dying.”'

Once her husband's situation has been resolved, does Ms. Chaudhry intend to demand Hamas disarm? Because -- as I'm sure she knows -- disarming Hamas is necessary to keep the current cease-fire in place, and last year, she certainly sounded passionate about disarming Israel, merely to obtain a cease-fire. Perhaps the Stranger could ask her?

I thought it was funny at first but I'm really starting to get tired of The Stranger repeatedly writing puff pieces on this guy. Perhaps the authors would feel differently if it were their or their loved one's passport Chaudhry had stolen and used their name to....see if you can guess what he did with it....sign up for more benefits.

@6: This story goes right up into the Stranger's two big wheelhouses. First, the Stranger absolutely loves wantonly anti-social behavior which harms innocent persons, like homeless encampments full of petty criminals in middle-class and working-class neighborhoods across Seattle. Zahid Chaudhry's career of petty crime fits that love perfectly. Second, the Stranger also loved pretending to care about Palestinians, and Melissa Chaudhry's entire Congressional campaign consisted of pretending to care about Palestinians. Once "cease-fire" went from meaning "disarm Israel," to "disarm Hamas," both the Stranger and Melissa Chaudhry couldn't flee fast enough from pretending to care about saving Palestinian lives via a cease-fire. (In case anyone could possibly have missed that last point, Hamas started openly slaughtering Palestinians from the moment the current cease-fire began; neither the Stranger nor Melissa Chaudhry have emitted so much as one single solitary peep of protest about Hamas' many extra-judicial killings of Palestinians.)

So, good luck with getting the Stranger to stop complaining either about the hard times a petty criminal freely brought upon himself, or about how his wife (who pretended to care about Palestinians) must suffer for the choices she's made.

@4: he has been held "for a little while" already. he's not a risk for flight (he wants to stay) and he's not a violent criminal. letting him get medical care for his eyes and await deportation at home with his kids is possible, it's just not hard-ass.

@2, @8: There's no need for them to treat him this way, it's abusive and wrong, and I'm sure we'll all pay for it in court settlements someday -- but we all knew things like this could happen if we allowed Trump back in.

Despite that knowledge, the Stranger and Melissa Chaudhry did everything they possibly could to denigrate the Democrats and drive down turnout among the liberal voters they despise, as they sought to '"punish" Harris and to defeat her,' because All Gaza All the Time. Now none of them will even so much as mention Gaza, as I've been noting throughout this thread.