Above photo: Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, his wife Melissa, and their children, 2-year-old Salma and 8-month-old Adil, are shown in June. Courtesy of the Chaudhry family.
No one is truly safe. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beloved spouse and parent, an active community member appreciated by everyone, or a veteran in a wheelchair injured while serving your country.
Last Thursday, August 21st, Zahid Chaudhry was detained by ICE during his naturalization interview. Zahid is the president of the Rachel Corrie Veterans For Peace Chapter 109 in Olympia, WA. He is now held at the Northwest Detention Center.
“As of Sunday evening (8/24/25), he is being kept in solitary confinement, in 24/7 bright light, without accommodations for his disabilities and almost completely without communication.” – https://keepzahidhome.carrd.
Veterans For Peace calls on the Department of Homeland Security to immediately free Zahid so he can rejoin his family and continue his work in the community.
We urge our members and supporters to stand with Zahid by:
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- Signing this petition for his release. bit.ly/FreeZahid
- Sending a letter to your representative and senators. Click here to send a letter to your congressional leader.
- Staying in the loop through this website, learn more about Zahid, and how you can help.
- Sharing widely with your networks.
A message from Zahid, shared by his wife, Melissa, to all of us, reminds me why I joined Veterans For Peace —to stand in solidarity with veterans like him.
“I’m an Honorable, decorated, disabled US Army veteran in a wheelchair. I swore to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. If this is what my country can do to me, no veteran is safe.”
“We must love our country enough to take a stand for courage and moral principle, that our government should not do anything unconstitutional to any one of us. Not based on race, religion, language, country of origin… to no one.
“The Constitution, that I swore the soldier’s oath to protect and defend, is the glue that keeps us together. It’s the foundation we stand on, as a nation and as people. If the Constitution falls apart – or gets torn apart – everything falls apart.”
“Now is the time for courage. Now is the time for solidarity. Now is the time to decide what America means to us and to stand for liberty and justice for ALL before it’s too late.”
—–Zahid Chaudhry
Read more on Melissa Chaudhry’s Substack.
