Tased and shackled: New Haven man recounts three weeks spent in ICE custody

A former Yale student, who’s an Afghan citizen, is opening up about what he endured while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, custody last month.

Saif Khan, 32, said he was arrested on May 9 by ICE agents while attending an immigration hearing at the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Hartford.

Khan came to the U.S. in 2011 on a student visa after being accepted to Hotchkiss School and Yale University.

But his visa was revoked when he was accused of sexual assault and was expelled from Yale. He was acquitted of the charge in 2018 and has been seeking asylum ever since. He said he has a clean record.

“The notice to appear from Department of Homeland Security had put me in removal proceedings, and so I thought that that was preposterous,” Khan said. “I thought my particular case was straightforward, so I showed up on my own and made my case and the judge was going to get a merit hearing scheduled as soon as possible and we left it at that.”

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Khan said after he went before the judge, he walked to the elevators to leave the courthouse, and that was when over half a dozen people approached him.

“People in plainclothes. No badge, no, you know, no uniform, no, no visible anything,” he recalled. “Just suddenly trained towards me with their faces, very predatorial eyes, you know, like how in the jungle when somebody like just suddenly looks at you.”

He ran away from the officers, he said, and was tased for it.

“I ran to safety. I got scared. I ran towards the only safety that I knew the, U.S. Marshal and the judge, and that's when I…I got shocked when I was at the courtroom and then I fell back, hit my head, lost consciousness.”

When he regained consciousness, Khan said the judge was yelling at the officers.

“The judge was yelling at them, and the officers were telling him to stay back,” he said.

Khan said he was taken downstairs to an 8-by-4 foot holding cell, where he was shackled, and wasn’t allowed a visit to the bathroom when he requested.

“I couldn't hold on and I wet myself in the room,” Khan said.

The 32-year-old said his left side was numb from the tasing, and his heart was racing, so he was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

He was released that night, and taken back to the same cell, where he was forced to sleep overnight on the urine-soaked floor.

The next day, he said he was transported by bus to a correctional facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where he spent 21 days.

There, detainees were given just an hour or two of recreation time in a small room.

“Thankfully, I only was in there for 21 days, but there were people in there who had, you know, video court, and their interpreter didn’t show up or their attorney didn't show up. Or as was the case for about 80 to 90% of the people there, they don't have any attorneys,” he said.

“Just waiting and waiting and it just seemed like it was designed for pressure to people to self deport," he continued.

He said he found himself helping other detainees, from writing letters, to helping fill out forms and keeping spirits high.

“I think that's what helped me quite a bit was, you know, humor, I did magic tricks for people, you know the other inmates. I did card tricks. I played a lot of chess. I was on phone calls. It just helped pass the time, and I found this one little dictionary and I read it several times," he said.

On May 27, Khan was granted bond, and he said it was paid later that day. Yet ICE agents sent him away to a third facility, he said, but this time it was on a plane to Pennsylvania.

“The prison transferred me that same day, and that transfer was very difficult. There was no phone access. There was no ability for me to communicate to the outside or to attorneys. On the airplane, you know, these small things, like you’re shackled with like 100 plus people and the AC's off and it's a hot day, and there's only one bathroom at the back,” he explained. “And no food. We were given a water bottle in the afternoon after the whole day, we had nothing.”

“There was a blessing, to be honest. To just be able to have a window on the plane to be able to look out,” Khan added. “I was just genuinely scared. Like, 'what's going on?' And 'where are we being taken?'”

Once at that third detention facility in Pennsylvania, Khan said his first night was spent inside a 20-by-10 foot cell with 13 other people inside.

“It was torture in the sense of that that you were left in a very constrained space in a difficult spot with nothing to do and no outlet. And then, moreover, there was just tons of anxiety related to what will happen,” he said. “There was like a real sensation that you're like, 'whoa, I…I'm at their mercy.'”

Khan was released that Friday and picked up by his worried-sick family members. Once back home in New Haven, he slept for days.

It’s the fear, the anxiety, the mental torture and the anguish, that was surreal.

Saif Khan

Now, while he waits for asylum, he said he still loves America, and hopes he can stay.

“I cherish the opportunity to assimilate, to acclimatize to, to learn the customs, and to do my best to be a positive contributor to this society,” Khan said. “I've been here for 14 years. I studied here. I love it here. I would deeply appreciate the opportunity to continue being here.”

NBC Connecticut asked ICE and the Department of Justice for comment but hasn't yet heard back.

"ICE tased and disappeared a former Yale student from a Hartford courtroom, an asylum-seeker with no criminal record. He was dragged through three states in chains for three weeks, even getting transferred after a judge ordered him released. The ICE agents who ambushed my client called another judge a 'traitor.' They are the real traitors, to the constitutional rights that they swear to uphold," Khan's attorney Alex Taubes said.