TACOMA, Wash. (Diya TV) — Melissa Chaudhry, a Democratic candidate challenging Rep. Adam Smith in Washington’s 9th Congressional District, released a campaign video this week revisiting her husband’s monthslong detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, using footage of him speaking at a 2010 immigration reform conference in Washington, D.C.
Chaudhry’s husband, Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, a Pakistan-born legal permanent resident who has lived in the United States for roughly 25 years, was detained by ICE on August 21, 2025, when he arrived for a scheduled citizenship interview at an immigration office in Tukwila. He was held for 124 days, including time in solitary confinement, before a federal judge ordered his release. Melissa Chaudhry has said the judge who ordered the release called the detention “flat out wrong” and that a government attorney apologized in open court. The case remains before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Zahid Chaudhry was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 2005 after sustaining injuries on active duty, according to campaign materials, and later worked as a firefighter, paramedic and first responder. He obtained legal permanent resident status in 2001 after marrying his former wife; he has been married to Melissa Chaudhry since 2022, and the couple has two young children.
The Department of Homeland Security has disputed the characterization of Zahid Chaudhry as a straightforward case of wrongful detention. In a press release issued after his detention, DHS said Chaudhry entered the U.S. in 1988 on a B-2 visitor visa and did not disclose a prior criminal record from Australia — which DHS described as including offenses related to financial deception, possession of stolen goods and falsifying passports — in his 2001 visa application. DHS also said he misrepresented his citizenship status in an application to become a reserve officer with the Yakima Police Department; he separately served in the Washington National Guard.
Melissa Chaudhry has rejected DHS’s characterization, calling the agency’s press release a “smear campaign” and disputing the significance of the Australian conviction, which she described as comparable to a minor infraction and outside the standard “look-back” period used to assess an applicant’s moral character for naturalization. The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Washington chapter said in a statement that DHS has shown “a pattern” of releasing personal information about high-profile detainees to influence public opinion. Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell also criticized the detention, saying in a statement that Chaudhry “was taking the lawful steps toward citizenship” and that detaining him “undermines faith in the system.”
Melissa Chaudhry ran against Smith in 2024, receiving roughly 90,000 to 100,000 votes in the general election, according to figures published by her campaign, and is running again in 2026. She has said her husband’s detention is connected to the couple’s public criticism of U.S. policy toward Gaza, though ICE did not respond to requests for comment on that claim. She published a book in January, “Service and Sacrifice,” about her husband’s immigration case and military service.
Washington’s 9th Congressional District is one of the most demographically diverse in the country, and Melissa Chaudhry’s campaign has cited immigrant and refugee communities as a core constituency in the race.
