Comatose patient refuses to complete the paperwork to renew his visa

Comatose patient refuses to complete the paperwork to renew his visa

Posted on February 14, 2014
As a Pakistani exchange student lies in a coma at a Duluth hospital, the uncertainty over what happens when his student visa expires — in just over two weeks — remains unresolved.

“The U.S. State Department is not renewing his visa, therefore he will not be legally allowed to stay in the country,” Maureen Talarico, spokeswoman for Essentia Health, said Wednesday.

But a State Department press officer said it’s not up to them.

“Homeland Security does visa enforcement,” Drew Bailey said from Washington. “We don’t enforce visas.”

Muhammad Shahzaib Bajwa, 20, an anthropology and sociology student at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, was a passenger in a 2000 Subaru Forester that struck a deer just south of the state Highway 210 exit off Interstate 35 on Nov. 13. He was taken to Community Memorial Hospital in Cloquet. He then went into cardiac arrest and was transferred to Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center, where he has been in a coma ever since.

“A doctor from the hospital called me in the middle of the night,” said his older brother, Shahraiz Bajwa, 22, who was studying civil engineering in Pakistan. “At first I thought it was a dream or that somebody was telling me a joke.”

When he realized it was real, Shahraiz quickly booked a fight to the United States with a cousin, arriving Nov. 16. The brothers’ mother, Tanzeela Javed, didn’t have her passport immediately ready, but joined him in Duluth soon after.

“The day my mom came over, you had the worst snowstorm in Duluth in years,” he said, referring to the 23-inch snowfall in early December.

With help from the local Islamic community, mother and son first stayed in the Sheraton Hotel and then moved into an apartment.

“The support and the love we got from the people of Duluth, from the UWS people, the hospital, it’s been very tremendous,” Shahraiz said.

But they were disturbed to learn that Shahzaib’s visa, due to expire Feb. 28, wouldn’t be extended. The hospital was making arrangements for his transportation back to Pakistan, they learned.

“It’s a 24-hour flight, and anything can happen to him on the flight,” Shahraiz said. “We don’t want to take that risk, and we want to keep him here until he is fully recovered because it’s the best medical system in the world. And they want us to take him to a third-world country.”

The family is from Faislabad, the third-largest city in Pakistan with more than 2 million people. The brothers’ father died in 2005, and they are not well off, Shahraiz said. But they’ve been getting help from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Ibrahim Hooper, the group’s national communications director, said CAIR normally deals with discrimination cases and civil rights issues. But this case seemed important enough to attract the organization’s attention, he said.

Shahraiz first contacted CAIR’s Minnesota office.

They were immediately concerned to learn that a student might be returned to Pakistan, said Lori Saroya, who directs the office.

“But when we found out that the student was in a coma, that was completely outrageous,” Saroya said. “He’s being expected to get in an airplane for 24 hours while he’s comatose and fly halfway across the world. It doesn’t seem like it’s a good plan.”

Saroya connected Shahraiz with Saiko McIvor, an immigration lawyer in the Twin Cities.

In 26 years as an immigration lawyer, McIvor said, she had never seen a case like this.

“It’s a very unique situation,” she said.

McIvor sounded confident Wednesday, saying she has contacted the State Department and the Immigration Service Office within the Department of Homeland Security. She said she hoped to have the matter resolved within a couple of days, but couldn’t be “100 percent” certain.

She has heard from congressional offices and church organizations wanting to help, McIvor said.

“There’s overwhelming support to help him, and I believe the U.S. government would be amenable to at least temporarily renew his legal status,” she said.

Shahraiz said he also was encouraged after the first media reports about the situation came out. He had heard from the Pakistani consulate, he said.

“I think they’ll take care of it now,” he said.

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security’s Michigan office and the Pakistani Consulate’s Chicago office weren’t immediately returned on Wednesday.

Even if he is allowed to stay in the United States, the battle may be a long one for Shahzaib, his brother said. Doctors have told him that it can take more than a year to recover from the type of condition Shahzaib is in, Shahraiz said.

But there already have been signs of progress.

“Many of the doctors were thinking that he’s not going to come this far,” Shahraiz said. “We’re still very hopeful.”