The Erie County Legislature will have to decide in the coming weeks if it will act on a petition filed Wednesday demanding lawmakers question the Erie County Sheriff's Office about the death of a blind Rohingya refugee.
Family members of Nurul Amin Shah Alam and State Assemblymember Jon Rivera and dropped off a petition with over 700 signatures to the legislature Wednesday. The petition calls on the body to question why the Sheriff's Office handed Alam over to federal Border Patrol upon his release from custody.
"I am extremely grateful and very happy, and I will remember them in my prayer," said Nurul Amin Shah Alam's widow, Fatimah Abdul Roshid, through an interpreter. "I am looking for answers, and they are supporting, and they are looking for the same answer, so that it doesn't happen again."
Alam, who came to the U.S. in 2024, was found dead days after immigration officers dropped him off outside a closed Tim Hortons this past February. Alam did not speak English. His death was ruled a homicide by the county medical examiner.
"We're worried about the interaction between local government and ICE, and it's not just something that's going to go away," Rivera said.
Rivera says they're focusing this effort on the legislature because they can hold the sheriff accountable.
"This body is the body that approves the sheriff's budget," Rivera said. "This body is the body that approves the sheriff's contracts. It's this body that approves what the sheriff does, and I'm hopeful that it will continue its track record of holding the sheriff's office accountable."
Rivera says his initial call for action from the Legislature in March received little response. Now, with hundreds of people standing behind him and Alam's family, Rivera is hopeful.
“We just submitted today to the county legislature a petition of almost 700 signatures," Rivera said at Old County Hall. "Which is high by the standards of what we see come into this legislature, of concerned people that feel the same way I do, that feel the same way they do, which is answers have to be made."
Rivera says the legislature now has multiple options, including filing the petition into the record, discussing it at a meeting, or requesting the sheriff appear to answer questions. They are back in session on June 25.
