Taahir Shaikh wanted headshots for his new job, so he arrange an appointment with a photographer named Ward Sakeik. One appointment become three photograph shoots, and the 2 simply stored speaking.
Three years later, the newlywed couple was elated to go on their honeymoon.
However after spending 9 days within the U.S. Virgin Islands, the couple’s journey ended with Sakeik, 22, being detained for what has turn into months in a number of U.S. immigration detention facilities.
Sakeik, whose household is from Gaza however is legally stateless, has lived within the U.S. since she was 8, when her household travelled to the U.S. on a vacationer visa and utilized for asylum, in line with her husband. Whereas she was issued a deportation order greater than a decade in the past, Sakeik was permitted to remain within the U.S. below what’s generally known as an “order of supervision,” during which she repeatedly checked in with federal immigration authorities and is permitted work authorization, in line with her lawyer and husband.
On the St. Thomas Airport, because the couple ready to return house on Feb. 11, Sakeik was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Safety — and has been held in custody within the months since.
Then, final week, the federal government tried to deport Sakeik with out informing her the place she was being despatched, in line with Shaikh. Sakeik says an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer instructed her she was being taken to the Israel border, he mentioned. After she waited within the airport for 2 hours, she was despatched again to Prairieland Detention Middle in Alvarado, Texas, the place she had lately been transferred.
She later came upon this was simply hours earlier than Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, Shaikh mentioned.
Ward Sakeik has been in detention since February. Her new husband, Taahir Shaikh is anxious she could also be deported.
Obtained by ABC Information
Now, going through a nonetheless unsure future, his spouse’s household is “fearful past creativeness,” Shaikh, a U.S. citizen, instructed ABC Information.
“She’s in a procedural black gap as a result of she’s not even eligible for a bond,” Shaikh mentioned. “They’re saying ‘while you had been eight years outdated, you already got your due course of in courtroom.’ She would not even keep in mind what a courtroom seems to be like.”
Stateless
Sakeik doesn’t have citizenship in any nation, in line with her lawyer, Waled Elsaban, and her husband. She was born in Saudi Arabia, which doesn’t assign citizenship at start to anybody who shouldn’t be born to Saudi residents. Sakeik, whose household is from the Gaza Strip, has by no means been to the Palestinian enclave, and he or she was not capable of acquire authorized standing or citizenship from there both, her lawyer mentioned.
The household got here to the U.S. 14 years in the past, when she was simply 8 years outdated, Shaikh mentioned.
“Fourteen years in the past, my spouse has no company within the choice. She has no concept what’s taking place. All she is aware of is that they’d refugee standing in Saudi Arabia, they weren’t given any stage of citizenship [and] their work authorization was being stripped from Saudi Arabia,” Shaikh mentioned.
The household got here to the U.S. on journey visas and sought asylum, Shaikh mentioned.
Years later, Sakeik’s asylum case was denied and he or she and her household had been issued deportation orders. Since Saudi Arabia, Israel and neighboring nations had been unwilling to simply accept Sakeik and her household, they had been permitted to remain within the U.S. below an “order of supervision” — a classification that supplied them work permits. They had been additionally required to repeatedly test in with ICE, in line with Shaikh and Elsaban.
Within the years since she was denied asylum, Sakeik and her household have explored a number of pathways to acquire visas or citizenship within the U.S., together with Deferred Motion for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and sponsorship, however they had been unsuccessful, her husband mentioned.
“There’s many tales similar to my spouse’s case, the place the native immigration courts have accepted it, and for no matter motive, whether or not it was the lawyer or the authorized group on the time, whether or not it was only a matter of the decide that had their case on the docket, they had been denied,” Shaikh mentioned.
“My spouse has tried each route to regulate her standing. Now that she’s lastly on the end line and he or she has a technique to get lawful everlasting residence, they stripped it from her,” Shaikh mentioned.
Ward Sakeik, whose household is from Gaza however is legally stateless, has lived within the U.S. since she was a baby.
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Detained on the airport
The couple thought they’d ready for his or her honeymoon. Months earlier than their wedding ceremony, below the Biden administration, the couple known as an ICE processing heart to ask if they may journey to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Shaikh mentioned they had been instructed they may.
On the Dallas Fort Price Airport, the morning of their journey in February, additionally they requested a Transportation Safety Administration consultant and an airline consultant and had been assured they may journey to the islands with simply their U.S. driver’s licenses, he mentioned.
After being detained on the St. Thomas Airport on their return journey, Shaikh mentioned Sakeik was stored handcuffed on the airplane to Miami, the place the flight had a layover. The couple was not given a motive for her detention and was initially instructed she can be launched from custody in Miami.
There, the couple was separated. Sakeik was stored in Miami for 3 weeks earlier than being despatched to a detention heart in Texas. Sakeik later instructed her husband she was shackled by the arms and legs as she walked by means of the airport, he mentioned.
Tried deportation
Final week, after greater than three months in custody, federal authorities moved to deport Sakeik, in line with Shaikh and her legal professional.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was detained on her method again from her honeymoon in February.
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On the morning of June 12, Sakeik was woke up and instructed she was being deported, in line with her husband.
After many detainees had been rounded up, she was taken to the Fort Price Alliance Airport, her husband mentioned.
When she requested for journey paperwork or to be instructed the place she was being taken, an officer instructed her she was being taken to the Israeli border, in line with Shaikh.
After ready on the airport for 2 hours, Sakeik, 4 different Palestinians and an Egyptian man had been returned to detention services, in line with Shaikh.
“An ICE officer [the next] morning got here and mentioned, ‘The one motive your airplane did not come is as a result of Israel bombed Iran final night time, and there was a security protocol that no flights had been going to be flown into Israel,'” Shaikh instructed ABC Information.
Neither Sakeik nor her legal professional got written notification of the place she was being deported, her husband and legal professional mentioned. Her legal professional sought a keep of removing that may preserve her within the U.S. after the federal government moved to deport her final week, and on Monday he was instructed her removing “shouldn’t be imminent,” Elsaban instructed ABC Information.
‘Exhausted her due course of rights’
DHS initially instructed ABC Information Sakeik “left the U.S.” when she traveled to the U.S. Virgin Islands — a U.S. territory.
“The arrest of Ward Sakeik was not a part of a focused operation by ICE. She selected to depart the nation and was then flagged by [Customs and Border Patrol] making an attempt to reenter the U.S.,” Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin mentioned in an announcement to ABC Information.
Taahir Shaikh and his spouse, Ward Sakeik, who dwell in Texas had been elated to go on their honeymoon in February.
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When ABC Information requested if the federal government’s stance was that journey to the Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory, constitutes somebody selecting to “depart the nation,” DHS supplied an up to date assertion.
“She selected to fly over worldwide waters and out of doors the U.S. customs zone and was then flagged by CBP making an attempt to reenter the continental U.S.,” McLaughlin mentioned in a second assertion.
DHS mentioned that Sakeik is within the U.S. illegally.
“She overstayed her visa and has had a closing order by an immigration decide for over a decade,” McLaughlin mentioned within the assertion. “President Trump and Secretary Noem are dedicated to restoring integrity to the visa program and making certain it’s not abused to permit aliens a everlasting one-way ticket to stay within the U.S.”
McLaughlin mentioned that Sakeik’s attraction of the ultimate order of removing was rejected by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2014. “She has exhausted her due course of rights and all of her claims for reduction have been denied by the courts,” the assertion mentioned.
DHS didn’t touch upon the order of supervision Sakeik and her legal professional say makes her standing within the U.S. authorized. DHS additionally didn’t reply to ABC Information’ questions asking why Sakeik was detained when she had introduced legitimate journey paperwork that she says TSA had instructed her would suffice forward of her journey or why, in line with Sakeik, she was instructed she can be despatched to the Israeli border when she has by no means lived within the area and isn’t a nationwide of any nation.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was detained on her method again from her honeymoon in February.
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DHS additionally didn’t reply as to if it was violating a standing courtroom order that bars the removing of migrants to 3rd nations with no correct probability to problem these removals.
The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to deport migrants. Final month, a federal decide in Boston ruled that the Trump administration’s deportations of eight males — who the administration alleged had been convicted of violent crimes — to South Sudan “unquestionably” violated an earlier order by not giving them enough due course of, together with a “significant alternative to object” to their removals to a rustic apart from their very own.
Shaikh, who mentioned he has visited his spouse 18 occasions within the months that she’s been held in detention, additionally submitted a inexperienced card software for Sakeik in February — two days after she was detained. Her software is pending.
Referring to his spouse’s household, Shaikh mentioned, “They do not need to dwell like this. My spouse has tried each route to regulate her standing.”
