As Muslims Across the U.S. Face Mounting Stress, We Revisit Our Story about a Detained Filipino Journalist

“Today we have made it to the tenth fast of Ramadan,” Muslims for Just Futures wrote last week in a newsletter. “We approach the end of the first third of Ramadan, the third of Mercy, and move tonight to the third of forgiveness.”

In the email, the organization wished mercy and forgiveness for all its readers, and called for the government to release five Muslims currently held by ICE. 

One of those five is Ya’akub Ira Vijandre, a Filipino photojournalist, senior safety specialist for American Airlines and DACA recipient who ICE detained last October at gunpoint, citing social media posts extolling Islamic principles.

Even in custody, he has remained “an active community member and organizer… sharing notes on his daily experiences during Ramadan in detention via instagram – you can find them here,” wrote Sana Siddiq, a regional director for Muslims for Just Futures.

We heard about him first-hand from his cousin in MindSite News’ “Unseen” series written and reported by Simran Sethi, a fellow of the Nova Institute for Health. Ira Vijandre’s story is one of a number of moving testimonies in “It’s More Horrific Than What Is Being Told,” Sethi’s powerful audio series on Filipinos targeted by ICE. 

Muslim Americans are facing mounting stress from actions taken by the Trump administration. Throughout this Ramadan, Muslims for Just Futures are also remembering 56-year-old Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a legally blind Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, who was found dead last month after being left by CBP outside a locked Buffalo doughnut shop at night in weather reported as 23 degrees Fahrenheit.

As Siddiq wrote in their newsletter: “He was detained for a year by ICE. Border patrol agents then released him, abandoning him five miles away from his house, without notice to his attorney or his family. He was missing for five days before his body was found, out in the freezing cold… [He] should be with his family this Ramadan, and I urge us to keep him in our duas [prayers].”

As a result of ICE raids on places of work and worship, “the level of anxiety among people is at its highest; we’ve never seen something like this,” said Imad Hamad, executive director of the  American Human Rights Council. War in the Middle East is now adding to that stress for those with family in the region.

The name “MindSite News” is used with the express permission of Mindsight Institute, an educational organization offering online learning and in-person workshops in the field of mental health and wellbeing. MindSite News and Mindsight Institute are separate, unaffiliated entities that are aligned in making science accessible and promoting mental health globally.