After 14 days in custody, Indian jazz guitarist and composer Pritesh Walia has been released on bond by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Walia was detained at Los Angeles Airport on August 2 and then taken to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California.

While his immigration case is ongoing, Walia spoke of his release in a video posted on Instagram and thanked his family, friends and the jazz community for supporting him. “The last 14 days have been the hardest days of my life. I was scared, hopeless, and completely broken being separated from the people I love… not knowing what was going to happen,” said Walia. “When you are sitting in a detention facility, the world feels very small and it is very easy to lose hope. I lost hope all the time,” added the New Delhi-born jazz guitarist and teacher.

An ICE spokesperson at the agency’s Los Angeles field office told American Community Media (ACM), a US-based nonprofit news and communications organisation focused on ethnic and community media, that Walia was arrested for allegedly failing to meet the requirements of his non-immigrant status and overstaying his temporary visa.

Born in Delhi, Walia trained in Hindustani classical music before moving to the US to pursue music. He studied at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles and Berklee College of Music, followed by training at New England Conservatory and is a well-known voice in the US jazz scene, especially in Boston, where he regularly hosted jam sessions at The Bebop, a popular live music space. On July 31, Walia released his latest album and one of his most ambitious projects titled Journey to Nowhere, a large-scale collaboration with Henry Godfrey Jazz Orchestra featuring a slew of jazz musicians, including pianists Aaron Parks and Jerry Bergonzi and saxophonist Godwin Louis. It has been described as Walia’s most ambitious compositional project yet.

 

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Walia has lived in the US since 2019 on an O-1B visa, given to people recognised for extraordinary ability in the arts. The visa is valid for three years and can be extended by one year at a time. According to the statement by the ICE official to ACM, Walia should have left the country by August 2025. Walia, however, in the video, did not comment on the reason for his detention.

Walia also suffers from Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness (PPPD), Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH), and chronic vestibular migraines and his friends, family and the musician community were concerned about his care at the detention facility.