Kansas dad Syed Ahmed Jamal spent his first day out of federal immigration detention doing the everyday things he was denied during the nearly two months he was locked up. When you’re dangerously close to being torn from your family and life, it’s the everyday things that count:
“You can hug your wife. You can hug your kids. You can hug your brother or you can walk out and see nature,” he explained. “It’s a liberating feeling. You have your freedom. You can smell the air. You can look at the trees.”
After weeks of turmoil and uncertainty for his family, Jamal spent his first full day of freedom drinking morning tea with his wife, shopping at the grocery store, and getting a haircut.
“We came home and had a late breakfast. Omelettes and bread. It’s the best breakfast in the world you can get,” he said, laughing. “Jail food is bland. They try but there’s hardly any taste.”
Of course, jail food was the least of his problems. In late January, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested the professor as he was taking his daughter to school, and despite having no criminal record, had him on a plane for deportation. He was pulled off at the last minute, and ended up being shuffled between five different facilities before he was finally released by a judge this week:
“You’re in a new place. Some of these places are filled with inmates and immigrants,” he explained. “Your heartbeat does go up and you cry. I cried in the beginning for (the children) and for my siblings, for my community. I would remember the good times at home.”
Despite the possibility of deportation and reality of not seeing his family for quite some time, Jamal said he never gave up hope.
“I believe that if you raise your children, work hard, if you care about the community and care about people, if you don’t try to hurt anyone, something good can happen to you,” he explained. “It did happen.”
Jamal’s story is horrifying but in no way unique. ICE is hellbent on an ethnic cleansing campaign, deporting undocumented dad Jorge Garcia on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, undocumented dad Amer "Al” Adi Othman a month later, and undocumented dad David Chavez-Macias just last week. None of them had a criminal record. Jamal said he thought about this kids often while he was detained:
During a stay at a federal detention center in Honolulu, Jamal thought about his daughter when he saw the view of the island from his cell.
“She talks about this geology with lava volcanoes and mountains,” he explained. “At least I can go back and tell her about this.”
After being flown back to the metro and held in custody at the Platte County Jail, Jamal was released Tuesday afternoon.
Since then, he has been grateful for his time with his family.
“I can take the kids to the park and play soccer with them, maybe some basketball,” he explained. “These little things are what makes life worthwhile.”
“Despite being free from custody,” reports KSHB, “Jamal still awaits a decision from the Board of Immigration Appeals on whether his case will be reopened,” continuing to leave his family in fear he could be ripped from them yet again. “They find it hard to believe,” he said about his children. “In the back of their mind, they think, ‘What if it happens again?’”
“What if” is the question running through the minds of countless families across the U.S. Under Donald Trump’s administration, ICE’s tactics are the shame of our nation, destroying families, communities and American children. The next time Trump insists he’s rounding up dangerous people, remember Syed, remember Jorge, remember Amer and remember David. Keep fighting to end what we’ll remember as one of the most disgraceful periods in our history.