In this episode of The Ask, Malia K. Du Mont, Dumaine William, Danielle Riou, and Anwen Hughes join us for an urgent conversation about the detention of Bard College student and asylum seeker Ali Faqirzada, and what his case reveals about escalating enforcement and immigration policy shifts under the second Trump administration.

Our Episode Guests:

Malia K. Du Mont, Vice President & Chief of Staff, Bard College.

Malia K. Du Mont is Chief of Staff and Vice President for Strategy and Policy at Bard College. Previously, she was Co-President of Amur Equipment Finance and also held multiple civilian and military positions in the Pentagon.

An Afghanistan veteran, Malia serves as chair of Congressman Pat Ryan’s Veterans and Military Families Advisory Board. She received her B.A. in Chinese from Bard College and her M.P.P. from Harvard’s Kennedy School.

In addition to the World Affairs Council Mid-Hudson Valley, she also serves on the boards of the American University of Afghanistan. Arts Mid-Hudson, and Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley.

Dumaine Williams, Vice President for Student Affairs, Bard College.

Dumaine Williams is Bard College’s Vice President and Dean of the Early Colleges and Vice President for Student Affairs. In these roles Dumaine oversees aspects of student life at the Bard Annandale campus as well as academic programming for the Bard Early Colleges. 

Previously, he served as founding principal of the Bard Early College campus in Cleveland, Ohio and as the Dean of the Bard Early College campus in Newark, New Jersey. Dumaine, who is from Jamaica, graduated from Bard College with a degree in biology, received an MA in education leadership from Montclair State University, and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Stony Brook University. 

He then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, focusing on endocrinology, molecular pharmacology and systems therapeutics research. His areas of research and teaching include endocrinology, physiology, epidemiology and health inequity.

Danielle Riou (Associate Director, Human Rights Project)

Danielle Riou is the Associate Director of the Human Rights Project, where she oversees global and regional research partnerships and teaches practice-based human rights courses. Her areas of focus are human rights, technology, and migration. Her work has been supported by grants from the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other foundations.

Anwen Hughes

Anwen Hughes is Director of Legal Strategy for Refugee programs at Human Rights First, where she has worked in various capacities since 1999.  She oversees Human Rights First’s refugee-related litigation and amicus work, mentors pro bono lawyers representing asylum seekers through HRF’s program, represents asylum seekers directly, and serves as a resource to lawyers on a range of asylum issues, with a particular focus on bars to protection.

Human Rights First

Anwen and her colleagues do indispensable work; partnering with attorneys to defend asylum seekers like Ali Faqirzada: men and women who might otherwise be forced to face the labyrinth of the U.S. immigration courts alone.

To learn how you can support Anwen and her team, and stand with asylum seekers like Ali, please visit Human Rights First’s website:

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