MORTON GROVE, Illinois — The family of Ayaz Ahmed, a 61-year-old father from Morton Grove who died within a day of landing in Pakistan after a roughly 38-hour deportation flight in July, is calling for answers, and on Tuesday, November 10, their attorney spoke publicly about the case while CAIR-Chicago demanded an independent criminal investigation into his death and into ICE's medical standards. Ahmed had lived in the Chicago suburbs for nearly three decades after moving his family from Pakistan in 1997, had no criminal record according to his family and advocates, and was arrested by immigration agents in June for overstaying a visitor visa.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
His family attorney, Hashim Siddique, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the family had hired him to expedite Ahmed's deportation, not to fight it — because they feared his health would deteriorate in custody. Ahmed suffered from type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, a possible heart condition and other chronic conditions, and needed a breathing device, nasal spray and daily medication, according to Siddique. The family's fear, and what the records so far do and do not show, is now at the centre of a dispute that ICE rejects completely: the agency says Ahmed was medically cleared for travel, received all his scheduled medication, and that any claims of neglect or mistreatment are, in its words, categorically false.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Arrested in Morton Grove on June 3, held in Indiana
ICE agents arrested Ahmed in Morton Grove on June 3, 2026, for overstaying a visitor visa, and he was held at the Clay County Justice Center in Indiana, according to Siddique and to ABC7 Chicago's investigation. His children say he never had a police encounter during his decades in the United States, according to ABC7, and the family sent medical documentation and offered to help speed his departure. Around June 10, Siddique contacted the detention centre after the family raised concerns about whether Ahmed was receiving his prescribed medication; a jail officer assured him Ahmed was receiving them, and Ahmed himself told Siddique he was getting the medication at that time — but could not confirm whether it was being given consistently.
Source: ABC7 Chicago via Pakistan Point
"He may have been [receiving his medication] when I spoke to him, but I don't know if he was receiving it daily," Siddique told the Sun-Times. "That I don't know." Siddique said he notified ICE of Ahmed's medical needs and was told the concerns would be forwarded to the detention centre. He also said Clay County officials repeatedly told him detainees could request medical care through electronic tablets — but Ahmed was not fluent in English, and Siddique questioned whether he was able to use that system properly. On June 18, Siddique learned Ahmed had been placed in medical isolation; a Clay County officer cited claustrophobia, he said, but the circumstances remain unclear, and he described the isolation as similar to solitary confinement, with Ahmed alone in a cell. Clay County officials confirmed Ahmed was detained there but would not answer questions about his medical care, the Sun-Times reported.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
Three transfers in five days, then a 38-hour flight
In the days before his deportation, Ahmed was transferred through several detention facilities, according to Siddique: on July 24 to Jackson Parish Correctional Center in Louisiana, three days later to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, and on July 29 to Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. Siddique said he tracked the transfers through ICE notifications but received no flight itinerary or updates during the journey, and he does not know whether Ahmed received his prescribed medication at each facility or during the flight. "He keeps getting transferred, and then I'm not sure if everything went with him," Siddique said.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
According to ABC7 Chicago's analysis of FlightRadar24 data, a GlobalX charter plane chartered by ICE left Fort Worth, Texas, on July 29 and stopped in Maine, Iceland, Bulgaria and Georgia before landing in Pakistan on the night of July 30, roughly 38 hours later. Fellow deportees later told the family that Ahmed's condition deteriorated on the flight and that he fainted in line after landing without receiving medical help, according to accounts summarized from ABC7's reporting — accounts ICE disputes. Siddique said Ahmed's son emailed him that his father died seven hours after landing in Islamabad, and the Sun-Times reported Ahmed allegedly collapsed on the tarmac after the plane landed.
Source: ABC7 Chicago via Eyes On ICE
The documentary record that does exist comes from Pakistan. The postmortem report from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad, shared by the family with ABC7, records that Federal Investigation Agency officials brought Ahmed to the hospital at 11:43 a.m. on July 31 and that he was declared brought dead. Examiners found no signs of torture, assault or strangulation. ABC7 reported that the final reports bearing on the cause of death were handed to FIA officials and were not available, so neither the exact cause of death nor responsibility has been conclusively established. The family in the United States was informed on August 3 that he had died, according to ABC7's reporting, and he had disappeared from ICE's online detainee locator.
Source: ABC7 Chicago via Pakistan Point
ICE declined an interview with ABC7. In its statement the agency said Ahmed was medically cleared for travel and received all his scheduled medication during the flight. "No medical emergencies occurred during the flight, no signs of medical distress were observed, and no individuals required hospitalization upon landing," the agency said. "Any claims of neglect or mistreatment are categorically FALSE." ICE said that once Ahmed was transferred to the custody of the Pakistani government, it no longer had "authority over their care or access to their medical or official records." The Pakistan Consulate in Chicago and the Pakistani Embassy did not respond to the Sun-Times' requests for comment.
Why advocates say transfers themselves are a medical risk
Alexa Van Brunt, director of the Illinois office of the MacArthur Justice Center, is part of a legal team that recently filed a class-action lawsuit challenging conditions at Miami Correctional Facility, an Indiana prison that also holds ICE detainees; that lawsuit alleges inadequate medical care, delays in receiving prescribed medications, prolonged solitary confinement and unsanitary conditions — allegations that remain to be proven in court. Van Brunt told the Sun-Times that frequent transfers between detention facilities pose a further risk for people with chronic illnesses: "That's another impediment to proper care because there's no continuity of care for people with chronic diseases like cancer or diabetes." Former acting ICE director John Sandweg told ABC7 Chicago that, under the current pressure to keep removals moving, a flight carrying a person in medical crisis would have turned back — raising the question of what was known about Ahmed's condition on board.
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
What is solid
- ICE arrested Ayaz Ahmed in Morton Grove on June 3, 2026, over a visitor-visa overstay, and he was held at Clay County Justice Center in Indiana (attorney, Sun-Times, ABC7).
- He was transferred through facilities in Louisiana and Texas in late July (attorney Hashim Siddique).
- A PIMS Islamabad postmortem report records him brought dead at 11:43 a.m. on July 31, with no signs of torture, assault or strangulation (family-shared report via ABC7).
- ICE states he was medically cleared, received his scheduled medication, and that no medical emergency occurred on the flight (ICE statement).
- CAIR-Chicago has demanded an independent criminal investigation (CAIR-Chicago, Nov. 10).
What is only claimed
- Whether Ahmed received his medication consistently in detention and on the flight — the family attorney says he cannot confirm it; ICE says he received all scheduled medication.
- Whether his condition deteriorated on the flight and whether help was withheld after landing — fellow deportees' accounts via the family and ABC7, disputed by ICE.
- The exact time and cause of death — the son's email relayed by the attorney says seven hours after landing; the hospital record is from the following morning, and final cause-of-death reports are not available.
For South Asian and Punjabi families across the Chicago suburbs — Morton Grove sits in Cook County's heavily immigrant north suburbs, a short drive from Devon Avenue's South Asian business corridor — the case lands close to home: a long-settled father with documented chronic illness, a family that cooperated with removal and tried to speed it up for his own safety, and a chain of transfers in which, they say, they could not verify the one thing that mattered most, his daily medication. That continuity question is the same one raised for any detainee with diabetes or heart disease moved repeatedly between facilities, whatever their country of origin.
Source: CAIR-Chicago
What happens next
Ahmed's family is exploring legal action, according to Siddique. CAIR-Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab said in a statement: "This heartbreaking and entirely preventable tragedy lays bare the harrowing human cost of rushed, aggressive immigration enforcement. A father with serious, documented medical conditions and zero criminal history was subjected to a grueling 38-hour transit reportedly without proper medical care, ultimately losing his life immediately following his removal. We echo his grieving family's urgent call for transparency and demand an immediate, independent criminal investigation into ICE's medical standards, accountability protocols, and the horrific circumstances surrounding Mr. Ahmed's final days." No investigation has been publicly announced. The next concrete steps to watch are whether any agency opens the independent probe CAIR-Chicago and the family are demanding, whether the final Pakistani medical reports are released to the family, and what any legal filing by the family alleges on the record.
Source: CAIR-Chicago