Samir Mahmud with his mother, Salma Sikandar, who’s been ordered to leave the country by Thursday.
Samir Mahmud, a first-generation college student, said he should be thinking about how to keep up with his studies and fit in with his classes when he starts at Quinnipiac next week. Instead, the 17-year-old is worrying whether his mother will be there on move-in day or if she’ll be deported 7,800 miles away to Bangladesh.
“She’s always wanted to see me go to college. I tried my hardest going to New Haven schools, doing after-school activities, polishing my resume,” Mahmud said. “They’ve always been with me on the first day of school and every day dropping me off. In two days, that tradition could be broken apart.”
His mother, Salma Sikandar, arrived in the United States in 1999, overstayed her visa, and moved to New Haven’s Quinnipiac Meadows in 2011. Both she and her husband work at a McDonald’s in North Haven, saving up enough money along the way to enroll their son, a recent graduate of Engineering & Science University Magnet School, in a four-year college.
Sikandar had tried to gain legal status, arguing to a judge that she needed to stay in the country to help with her mother’s declining health. But after losing those cases, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently sent her a deportation order. Agents told her to be out of the country by Thursday.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Federal and local politicians are now fighting on Sikandar’s behalf, asking ICE to let her stay while her attorney tries to reopen the case. Alongside the mayors of New Haven and Manchester, their alder and a university representative, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro made that plea at a Tuesday morning press conference at City Hall.
“I believe forcing her to leave is counter-productive. What’s more, it’s cruel,” DeLauro said. “The Trump administration has lost sight of what makes America great: the opportunity to give your family a better life. While there are many facets in the border control and immigration system, common sense and humanity has to come into play. Mrs. Sikandar is fighting to give her son a better life, and we should not punish her for doing so.”
In a July 31 letter and an Aug. 16 conversation, DeLauro said that federal law did not require ICE to kick Sikandar out of the country. She asked authorities to weigh her “contributions to society and obligations to support and care for her family” and use their “discretion” to give her a reprieve. Immigration agents told DeLauro they’d make up their mind what to do by Thursday.
Mahmud said he’d been torn up thinking that he might be permanently separated from his mom. As he spoke about the deportation order, Mahmud started to choke up. His dad rushed forward to grip his arm, while his mom hugged him from the side, crying into his shoulder.
“My parents aren’t criminals. They’ve been paying taxes. My parents don’t have a speeding ticket or even a parking ticket now. They’ve been model parents, and I couldn’t wish for any better parents in life but them,” Mahmud said. “Now just seeing my mom struggle like this has been tough for me. She shouldn’t have to go through this. I should be giving her the headaches, not the government. I don’t want her to feel scared or worried.”
Anwar Mahmud: Do we look like criminals? Do we look like a threat?
Caught up with emotion, his father Anwar Mahmud said he was proud to wear a “Quinnipiac Dad” shirt and proud of his wife. He took a step back from the podium, stood next to his family and asked if they looked like criminals, if they looked like threats.
“What I teach [my son] is that if you work hard, you can be anything in this country. When I came here, I knew only three words: ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ’thank you.’ I made my life working on the McDonald’s crew and now I’ve become the store manager,” he said. “I don’t ask anything too much. I just ask for my wife to be with me. She is my strength, she is my everything.”
Mayor Toni Harp.
Mayor Toni Harp called for the federal government to set standards that are “sensible, equitable and enforceable,” rather than seeming to go after families at random. But in the meantime, she said New Haven residents needed to “rally” in support of their neighbors facing deportation.
“Throughout its history, New Haven has been a welcoming, accepting place, reliant on the hard work of new residents to establish themselves and add their inspiration to their successful mix we have,” she said. “I’m thankful for the acceptance of New Haven residents, the compassion of its activists and the willingness to stand with those who are oppressed and make them feel welcome for as long as they want to be here.”
The radical white nationalist trolls on both 4chan and in the highest office of the land would snarkily say the exact same thing these days: "you've got to go back".