Taahir Shaikh needed shots in the head for his new work, so he established an appointment with a photographer named Ward Sakeik. An appointment became three photo sessions, and the two were still talking.
Three years later, the newly married seemed to be euphoric to go to her honeymoon.
But after spending nine days in the Virgin Islands of the United States, the couple’s trip ended with Sakeik, 22, arrested for what has become months in several immigration detention centers in the United States.
Sakeik, whose family is from Gaza but is legally apádica, has lived in the United States since he was 8 years old, when his family traveled to the United States with a tourist visa and requested asylum, according to her husband. Although a deportation order was issued more than a decade ago, Sakeik was allowed to remain in the United States under what is known as an “supervision order”, in which it regularly registered with federal immigration authorities and the labor authorization is allowed, according to its lawyer and husband.
At St. Thomas airport, when the couple prepared to return home on February 11, Sakeik was arrested by customs and border protection in the United States, and has been in custody in later months.
Then, last week, the government tried to deport Sakeik without informing him where he was being sent, according to Shaikh. Sakeik says that an immigration officer and customs compliance told her that she was taken to the Israel border, she said. After she waited at the airport for two hours, they sent her back to the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado, Texas, where they had recently transferred her.
He later discovered that this was just a few hours before Israel launched air attacks in Iran, Shaikh said.
Ward Sakeik has been arrested since February. His new husband, Taahir Shaikh, is worried that he can be deported.
Obtained by ABC News
Now, facing a future still uncertain, his wife’s family is “afraid beyond imagination,” said Shaikh, an American citizen, ABC News.
“It is in a black procedure hole because it is not even eligible for a link,” Shaikh said. “They say ‘when you were eight years old, they already gave you your due process in court.’ She doesn’t even remember how a court of the court is seen.”
Stateless
Sakeik has no citizenship in any country, according to his lawyer, Waled Elsaban, and her husband. She was born in Saudi Arabia, who does not assign citizenship at birth to anyone who has not been born from Saudi citizens. Sakeik, whose family is from the Gaza Strip, has never been in the Palestinian enclave, and could not obtain legal status or citizenship from there, said his lawyer.
The family arrived in the United States 14 years ago, when I was only 8 years old, Shaikh said.
“Fourteen years ago, my wife has no agency in the decision. He has no idea what is happening. All he knows is that they had refugee status in Saudi Arabia, no level of citizenship was given [and] Its labor authorization was being stripped of Saudi Arabia, “Shaikh said.
The family came to the United States with travel visas and looked for asylum, Shaikh said.
Years later, the case of Sakeik asylum and she and her family received deportation orders. Since Saudi Arabia, Israel and neighboring countries were not willing to accept Sakeik and their family, they were allowed to remain in the United States under an “supervision order”, a classification that provided them with work permits. They were also asked to regularly be registered with ice, according to Shaikh and Elsaban.
In the years since the asylum, Sakeik and his family have explored several roads to obtain visas or citizenship in the United States, including deferred action for children’s arrivals (Daca) and sponsorship, but they were not successful, her husband said.
“There are many stories very similar to the case of my wife, where the local immigration courts have accepted it, and for any reason, be it the lawyer or the legal team at that time, either only a matter of the judge who had his case in the file, they were denied,” Shaikh said.
“My wife has tried each route to adjust her status. Now that she is finally in the finish line and has a way to obtain a legal permanent residence, they stripped her of her,” said Shaikh.
Ward Sakeik, whose family is from Gaza but is legally stateless, has lived in the United States since it was a girl.
Obtained by ABC News
Arrested at the airport
The couple thought they had prepared for their honeymoon. Months before their wedding, under the Biden administration, the couple called an ice processing center to ask if they could travel to the virgin islands of the United States, and Shaikh said they were told they could.
At Dallas Fort Worth airport, the morning of their trip in February, they also asked a representative of the transport security administration and a representative of the airline and were sure that they could travel to the islands with only their US driving licenses, he said.
After being arrested at St. Thomas airport on his return trip, Shaikh said Sakeik was handcuffed on the plane to Miami, where the flight had a scale. The couple did not receive a reason for their detention and initially told him that he would be released from custody in Miami.
There, the couple was separated. Sakeik remained in Miami for three weeks before being sent to a detention center in Texas. Later, Sakeik told her husband that she was chained by the hands and legs while walking through the airport, she said.
Deportation attempt
Last week, after more than three months of custody, the federal authorities moved to ATPORT Sakeik, according to Shaikh and his lawyer.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was arrested on his way back to his honeymoon in February.
Obtained by ABC News
On the morning of June 12, Sakeik was awakened and told her that she was being deported, according to her husband.
After many detainees were arrested, she was taken to the Fort Worth Alliance airport, her husband said.
When he requested travel documents or told where they were carrying it, an officer told her that they took her to the Israeli border, according to Shaikh.
After waiting at the airport for two hours, Sakeik, four other Palestinians and an Egyptian man were returned to detention facilities, according to Shaikh.
“An ice officer [the next] The morning came and said: “The only reason why his plane did not arrive is because Israel bombarded Iran last night, and there was a security protocol that they were not going to fly in Israel,” Shaikh told ABC News.
Neither Sakeik nor his lawyer received a written notification of where she was being deported, her husband and lawyer said. His lawyer requested a suspension of the elimination that would maintain it in the United States after the government moved to deport it last week, and on Monday they told him that his moving “is not imminent,” Elaban told ABC News.
‘He exhausted his due process’
Initially, DHS told ABC News Sakeik, “he left the United States” when he traveled to the Virgin Islands of the United States, a territory of the United States.
“Ward Sakeik’s arrest was not part of an ice -led operation. She chose to leave the country and was then marked by [Customs and Border Patrol] Trying to return to the United States, “Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement to ABC News.
Taahir Shaikh and his wife, Ward Sakeik, who live in Texas, were euphoric to go to their honeymoon in February.
Obtained by ABC News
When ABC News asked if the government’s position was that traveling to the Virgin Islands, a territory of the United States, constitutes someone who chooses “to leave the country,” DHS provided an updated statement.
“She chose to fly over international waters and outside the United States Customs Zone and was then indicated by CBP trying to re -enter the United States,” McLaughlin said in a second statement.
DHS said Sakeik is illegally in the United States.
“She exceeded her visa and has received a final order from an immigration judge for more than a decade,” McLaughlin said in the statement. “President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visas program and ensuring that it is not abused by allowing aliens a unidirectional permanent ticket to remain in the United States”
McLaughlin said that Sakeik’s appeal of the final removal order was rejected by the Immigration Appeals Board in 2014. “She has exhausted her due process and all her relief claims have been denied by the courts,” said the statement.
The DHS did not comment on the Sakeik supervision order and his lawyer say that his legal status in the United States. The DHS also did not answer the ABC News questions asking why Sakeik was arrested when he had presented valid travel documents that says that TSA had told him that it would be enough before his trip or why, according to Sakeik, he was told that they would send him to the Israeli border when he had never lived in the region and is not national of any country.
Ward Sakeik, 22, was arrested on his way back to his honeymoon in February.
Obtained by ABC News
The DHS also did not respond to whether it was violating a permanent court order that prohibits the elimination of migrants to third countries without adequate opportunity to challenge these removals.
The Trump administration has increased efforts to deport migrants. Last month, a federal judge in Boston ruled that the deportations of the Trump Administration of eight men, which the administration alleged were convicted of violent crimes, to South Sudan “undoubtedly” violated an order prior to not giving them the due proper process, including a “significant opportunity to object” to their removals to a country that is not his.
Shaikh, who said he visited his wife 18 times in the months that arrested her in detection, also submitted a green card application for Sakeik in February, two days after she was arrested. Its application is pending.
Referring to his wife’s family, Shaikh said: “They don’t want to live like this. My wife has tried each route to adjust their status.”
