Mother anxiously waits to find out if she will be deported
NEW HAVEN — As they wait for a ruling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the family’s anguish is palpable.
“This is mental torture,” Anwar Mahmud said as he sat in his living room with his wife, Salma Sikandar, and their son, Samir Mahmud, on Thursday.
ICE has ordered Sikandar to return to Bangladesh in a week on Aug. 23.
She has been here for 18 years after overstaying her visitor’s visa in 1999. Sikandar has lost multiple appeals to stay here since 2014, as she sought a cancellation of removal mainly connected to her son’s health.
Her attorney Robert Wang said the judge in her case at the Immigration Court in Hartford characterized his denial as a “close call.”
Sikandar now has a pending case before the Board of Immigration Appeals which Wang hopes will be heard in a few months.
She is also part of her husband’s case in which he is seeking asylum based on his conversion to Mormonism in 1997. As a member of a religious minority, he would be in danger of being persecuted if he returned to Bangladesh.
The three family members said their world has shrunk since Sikandar was given a deportation deadline almost two months ago.
Anwar Mahmud, a general manager at a McDonald’s in North Haven, said he has cut back his hours at the restaurant, given the anxiety he is feeling and his desire to spend as much time with his wife and son as the clock ticks down.
He said his boss has been great, telling him family comes first.
Mahmud said he is working about half his usual schedule because he can’t give the proper attention to his job and doesn’t want to cheat his boss.
Sikandar, who is a crew member at the restaurant, is embarrassed to go to work since she has to wear a GPS ankle bracelet. The couple said they are dipping into their savings.
Samir Mahmud, 17, said their life is governed by that bracelet. He wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to change the battery for his mother, which takes three hours to fully charge. It is changed again at 2 p.m. and later in the evening.
Samir Mahmud said when they attempted to get in their car recently for a quick local trip, the mechanism sent a warning that they were beyond the restricted area.
When they called the officials who are in charge of the bracelets, they were told “don’t worry, it was just a glitch,” Samir Mahmud said.
“This house is falling apart. We don’t eat well. We are not sleeping,” his father said.
They no longer take short trips on the weekend or visit friends. They have not shopped for groceries in weeks, grabbing quick bites at fast-food restaurants instead.
“They took our happiness. They took our freedom,” Anwar Mahmud said.
Sikandar’s last check-in with immigration officials is Tuesday. There is no word yet from the BIA.
More than 100 people rallied for the family in Hartford on Aug, 7 and Sikandar’s appeal has the support of Connecticut’s two U.S. senators, as well as U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3; U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1; state Sen. William Tong, D-Stamford and state Rep. Roland Lamar, D-New Haven.
A petition asking ICE to let Sikandar stay here has been signed by 42,000 people, the family said.
The waiting is almost the worst part, Anwar Mahmud said.
Samir Mahmud starts his freshman year at Quinnipiac University on Aug. 27, but these weeks he has been consumed with his mother’s situation. Settling into college life is not a priority at the moment.
Mahmud said he feels terrible that he can’t protect this wife as they go through this crisis. He has said previously that he doesn’t know how he would live without her. If reincarnation happens, Mahmud said, she would always be his choice for a spouse.
“I would marry her again,” he said. “She is a wonderful wife. She only thinks of us.”
Samir Mahmud said Bangladesh is a dangerous place, particularly for people who are westernized.
“I am losing hope. I’m afraid,” Sikandar said of returning there.