In a rare move, an action from a GOP-controlled House subcommittee has appeared to put a halt to the imminent deportation of Amer "Al” Adi Othman, an Ohio dad and small businessman, who faces being torn from his family after nearly four decades in the U.S.:
The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary subcommittee unanimously approved U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan's "private bill" to ask federal immigration officials to release Youngstown businessman Amer Othman Adi from jail and grant him a stay of deportation.
At 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the subcommittee approved Ryan's bill to ask the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for a six month stay of deportation to further review Adi's situation.
This is a huge step forward for the family, and following the House subcommittee’s move, they expected ICE to have released him by either Thursday night or Friday morning. But according to his attorney, Adi remains in ICE custody:
Adding to the confusion is that jail officials cannot discuss the case and ICE, which likely knows the most about Adi's status, is not talking.
“Amer deserves to have his case heard in court, and he deserves to stay in the United States—his home,” Congressman Ryan said. “In light of this development I call on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to immediately release Amer from custody to rejoin his family in Youngstown.”
Adi, like deported Michigan dad Jesus Garcia, has become one of the faces of the Trump administration’s racist mass deportation policies. Rather than focusing on actual dangers to public safety, federal immigrant thugs have swept up undocumented immigrants with no criminal record by the thousands:
After being permitted to stay in the country despite a 2007 order of deportation, ICE suddenly ordered Adi to leave the country late last year.
He and Fidaa, his American wife of 30 years, and their four daughters were resigned to the fate. The couple sold their suburban Youngstown house, turned their successful Youngstown businesses over to relatives to operate, and Adi and his wife bought one-way tickets to Jordan scheduled to leave Jan. 7. But just days before they were to leave, Adi received a call from ICE telling him the deportation was put on hold.
He was told to report to ICE on Tuesday, where he, Ryan, and his attorney expected a quick meeting. Instead, he was jailed and told he would soon be deported.
Following Congressman Ryan’s bill, that may not be the case anymore. “In the past, private bills, even if they were just introduced, delayed deportations for years,” NPR reported last year—and that’s precisely why they’ve been under attack by the Trump administration:
Most of these bills never pass. They just get reintroduced. So the Trump administration has alerted Congress it will no longer honor the legislation the way it used to. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it will only grant stays if one or two high-ranking members of the judiciary committee makes a written request. That's a high hurdle if the immigrant doesn't live in that lawmaker's state.
The House subcommittee has already decided on its own to hand Adi and his advocates an important victory. Now, the next step is for him to be reunited with his family.
“This is another example of our nation’s broken immigration system—a system that everyone agrees needs reform but remains a victim of partisan politics in Washington,” State Sen. Joe Schiavoni said. “It’s time that members of Congress and President Trump focus on passing comprehensive bipartisan immigration reform that treats our fellow human beings with dignity and respect.”
