Government attempts to deport stateless Palestinian woman again

Yahoo

6 hours ago

The federal government attempted to deport a stateless Palestinian woman on Monday for the second time, despite a court order barring her removal from a Texas district, according to court documents.
The attempted deportation also came just days after the first stage of her green card application was approved, her husband Taahir Shaikh told ABC News, opening up a potential pathway for her to obtain permanent residency.
Ward Sakeik -- a 22-year-old who is married to a U.S. citizen -- was detained by the government in February on her way home from her honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Sakeik's family is from Gaza, but she is legally stateless and has lived in the U.S. since she was 8 years old. Her family had traveled to the U.S. on a tourist visa and applied for asylum, according to Shaikh.
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Sakeik was issued a deportation order more than a decade ago after her asylum case was denied, but she was permitted to stay in the U.S. under what's known as an "order of supervision," in which she was given a work permit and regularly checks in with federal immigration authorities, according to her attorney and her husband.
After being detained in February, the government attempted to deport her once before. But last month, after that attempt, U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in the Northern District of Dallas issued an order on June 22 barring the government from deporting Sakeik or removing her from the Texas district where she is being held as her legal case plays out.
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However, Sakeik told her attorney that she was awakened early Monday by an officer who told her that "she had to leave" and that she was being removed from Prairieland Detention Facility outside Dallas, Sakeik's attorney Eric Lee wrote in a court filing on Monday.
"Sakeik informed me that when she arrived at intake, her belongings had been placed outside the door" and buses "were waiting outside to take her away," Lee wrote. "She was informed by officers that her departure from the facility was imminent."
Sakeik told Lee that she attempted to tell at least one officer about the judge's order barring the government from moving her out of the Northern District of Texas but was told "it's not up to me," according to court documents filed by her attorneys.
Sakeik was not able to contact her husband or attorneys Monday morning and Shaikh only discovered the government was attempting to remove her when another detainee called him and told him, he said.
Shaikh and Sakeik's attorneys made a number of calls to Immigration and Customs Enforcement informing "multiple officers" of the order in place, her lawyers wrote in court documents.
ICE officers told Sakeik's attorney that she would be placed on a flight scheduled to depart the facility but Sakeik and her attorneys were not informed where she was being taken, according to court documents.
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At one point, as her attorney attempted to inform a detention facility supervisor about the judge's order, the supervisor said "she did not want to know about any court order, and then hung up before I could ask any additional questions," Sakeik's attorneys Hiba Ghalib and Lee wrote in court documents.
After emailing the U.S. Attorney's Office about the attempt to remove her, Sakeik's attorneys received a response -- over 15 minutes after the flight's scheduled departure time -- that they were "looking into the matter and that the court's order would not be violated," according to court documents.
Over an hour after the flight's scheduled departure time, an officer at Prairieland told Lee that "the notes in Ms. Sakeik's file indicated that there was a removal attempt [Monday]," according to court documents.
Other detainees were also slated to be removed from the facility as well, including at least one individual who had been brought onto a tarmac with Sakeik in June, according to court documents.
Last month, before the judge had issued his order, the government also attempted to deport Sakeik without informing her where she was being sent, her husband said. Sakeik told her husband an ICE officer told her she would be taken to the Israel border. After waiting at an airport for two hours, she was returned to the Prairieland Detention Center.
She later found out this attempt to deport her was just hours before Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, Shaikh said.
Asked about the attempt to remove Sakeik on Monday, a senior Department of Homeland Security official told ABC News again that she is in the country "illegally," sending ABC News the same statement it provided about her case last month.
That statement read, in part, "The arrest of Ward Sakeik was not part of a targeted operation by ICE. She chose to leave the country and was then flagged by [Customs and Border Patrol] trying to reenter the U.S.," Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
When ABC News asked if the government's stance was that travel to the Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory, constitutes someone choosing to "leave the country," DHS provided an updated statement.
"She chose to fly over international waters and outside the U.S. customs zone and was then flagged by CBP trying to reenter the continental U.S.," McLaughlin said in a second statement.
"She overstayed her visa and has had a final order by an immigration judge for over a decade," McLaughlin said in the statement. "President Trump and Secretary Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visa program and ensuring it is not abused to allow aliens a permanent one-way ticket to remain in the U.S."
DHS did not acknowledge the judge's order barring Sakeik's removal from Texas or that she was previously under an order of supervision.