At dad’s campaign event, Bajun Mavalwalla II makes first public statement following arrest related to June anti-ICE protest

Bajun Mavalwalla II, one of the nine people arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy following the June 11 anti-ICE protest in Spokane and one of four who have not entered a guilty plea, made his first public statement on Saturday at the congressional campaign launch party of his father, also named Bajun Mavalwalla.

Immigration protests erupted in Spokane on June 11, sparking a massive police response and 30 arrests, in response to the surprise detention of asylum seekers Cesar Alexander Alvarez Perez and Joswar Slater Rodriguez Torres during a mandatory immigration hearing.

Mavalwalla II was one of nine people arrested weeks later by federal law enforcement on charges of conspiracy against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Two face additional charges of assaulting a federal officer.

Mavalwalla II has previously maintained that he attended the protest independently and was not otherwise affiliated with protest organizers or the others arrested on federal conspiracy charges.

In his first public statement Saturday, Mavalwalla II declined to speak on the specifics of the case on the advice, he said, of his lawyer. But he did discuss his personal relationship with refugee resettlement and his disdain for the sweeping immigration actions of the Trump administration.

Both Mavalwalla and his father served in Afghanistan, and after that country fell to the Taliban in 2021, he and his father were personally involved in helping Afghans he worked with during his deployment seek asylum in the United States.

“Eventually, over 40 of them were able to escape Afghanistan entirely,” Mavalwalla II said. “Half of those were children. Sadly, three of the adults recently received notices to appear from ICE and … fitted with ankle monitors.

“Helping these people consumed my life for over a year, so I’m pretty pissed off that the few who did manage to escape now are facing the threat of being deported back to Afghanistan.”

Mavalwalla II argued briefly that he was arrested for exercising his First Amendment rights before demurring on the specifics of his case, which is scheduled for trial in May.

“But I can talk about other things,” he continued, arguing the White House, empowered by “feckless senators and representatives,” has attacked the U.S. Constitution, diminished the economic well-being of Americans and weaponized military personnel against protesters.

He also argued his father would be a bulwark against what he described as federal overreach.

“I can’t predict the future, but I can see the past, and I know that we can’t go back, we can only go forward,” Mavalwalla II said. “And so without further ado, forward we go.”

Shortly after the older Bajun Mavalwalla’s campaign speech ended, the father and son left the Spokane Women’s Club and headed toward an anti-ICE protest also taking place Saturday afternoon in response to the killing of Renee Good by federal immigration officials in Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

Emry Dinman can be reached at (509) 459-5472 or by email at emryd@spokesman.com.