3/5/26 - Catching up

Good afternoon!

As we come close to wrapping up another week, let's first revisit some of another great newsletter's own feedback, and then finally get to an awful story that came up last week, and seems to have received surprisingly little coverage.

Together as a collective force

Peter Torres Fremlin, Disability Debrief - March 4, 2026

"While some found the content discouraging, many responded to share the hope they took from the Debrief. For example, Aayushee appreciates: 'Stories from far-flung corners of the world binding us together as a collective force, stories that breathe hope, determination and above all vulnerability ushering into a progressive era for persons with disabilities as a whole.'"

There is a lot of commentary to catch up on in this latest edition of Peter Torres Fremlin's excellent weekly roundup of global disability news and ideas. The newsletter's reader survey results are interesting too. And, it's a nice surprise to see a quote from Disability Thinking Weekday, commenting on a September 2025 Disability Debrief article.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam, Blind Rohingya Refugee Dumped by Border Patrol, Dies in Cold

Julia Métraux, Mother Jones - February 25, 2026

"Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Blind, seriously ill Rohingya refugee from Burma who does not speak English, was found dead in Buffalo—five days after Border Patrol dropped him off on a street corner without notifying his family, who had moved. He was 56."

Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol is dead

J. Dale Shoemaker, Investigative Post - February 25, 2026
Source: Paid subscriber Deborah Blair Porter

"Nearly blind and with no ability to speak English, Shah Alam got lost and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home as she was letting her dog out, according to Macaluso. Shah Alam is completely blind in one eye and can only see with blurry vision for several feet in the other, according to Macaluso ... The woman called police, Macaluso said. When Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, then arrested him, Macaluso said. The officers suffered minor injuries in the scuffle, he said."

Considering how dire this story is, I'm getting to it kind of late. And it's worth noting that there has been surprisingly little coverage of it in either mainstream or disability press.

As is often the case with bad interactions between disabled people and police – especially disabled people of color – there are "reasons" for why this happened. But as is usually the case, you don't have to dig far at all to discover several ways that fundamental ignorance of and indifference to disabilities was the real cause of this man's death. Ignorance and indifference are certainly enough to have led to this chain of events. But we shouldn't rule out ableist and racist hostility either. You don't have to have a cynical, ideological frame of mind to see how various agents of law enforcement – like local police, Border Patrol, ICE – could have become angry at having to deal with someone with so many "special needs," and thus just dumping him at a Tim Hortons. For disabled people, ignorance and indifference are always close cousins to anger and hatred.

Disability Thinking Weekday is a Monday-Friday newsletter with links and commentary on disability-related articles and other content. You can help promote Disability Thinking Weekday by forwarding it by email or posting on your social media. You can also comment by sending me an email at: apulrang@icloud.com. Collected comments are shared on the first of each month. A free subscription sends a newsletter to your email each weekday. Benefits of paid subscription include:

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