It’s been nearly a month since Syed Ahmed Jamal, a Kansas professor, was swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in front of his wife and children. In the time since his arrest, he’s been transferred five times, and was at one point pulled off the flight that was deporting him. Jamal hasn’t seen his family since the day he was arrested, and when he was transferred yet again—this time to a Missouri jail—they thought they’d finally get a chance to hug him. But, apparently unaware that jail rules required them to arrive a half-hour early for the meeting, they only got to wave to him through a window:
With no chance to share words Sunday, they waved at each other, with the children in tears. Jamal’s youngest child, 7-year-old Fareed, pushed his forehead against the glass. When they stepped away, he was taken into the arms of his older brother, 14-year-old Taseen.
“He’s devastated; his kids are devastated,” Jamal’s attorney, Rekha Sharma-Crawford, said afterward. “It’s a human tragedy for someone who is not a criminal.”
Sharma-Crawford said she had made three phone calls to jail staff this past week to arrange the visit for Jamal’s wife, their three U.S.-born children and Jamal’s brother. Each time, jail staff confirmed the visit would be at 1 p.m., she said, but not once did anyone advise her that they needed to arrive by 12:30 p.m.
”The jail staff made the closest interview room available for Jamal’s meeting with his attorney so that his family could at least see him across the two sets of windows,” report The Kansas City Star’s Joe Robertson and Ian Cummings, and jail officials say inmates are informed of the policy and it is outlined on their website. “It’s outrageous,” Jamal’s attorney said about the family’s failed visit. “His children have waited a month to see him. What civilized society does this to children?” Indeed, “outrageous” can describe just about anything regarding this case and the others making headlines for their senselessness and ICE’s cruelty.
The arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record, like Jamal, have accounted for the largest surge among arrests by ICE since Donald Trump took office last year. Yes, when Donald Trump, acting ICE director Thomas Homan, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and other mass deportation architects keep insisting federal immigration agents are targeting so-called “bad hombres” for deportation, they’re lying to you. The Kansas City Star Editorial Board:
For decades, Jamal was here legally, on a student visa and then on an H1-B work visa. When he tried to return to student status, his lawyer, Jeffrey Y. Bennett, said his visa was revoked, and he was asked to leave the country in 2011. But under an Obama policy of going after new arrivals and “felons, not families,” Jamal was allowed to stay on while regularly checking in with ICE.
He wasn’t exactly in hiding; last year, he ran for the school board. “He never missed a required check-in,’’ Bennett said. “The idea was that unless they committed a crime, they’d be left alone.”
To date, more than 105,000 people have signed the petition urging ICE to halt Jamal’s deportation, and legislators have introduced a “private immigration bill” that could help the dad stay here in the U.S. But, Jamal is still in jail despite having no criminal record and separated from his family. After getting their first visit with him in a month rebuffed by jail officials—“Platte County took perverse pleasure” in keeping him from the meeting, stated The Kansas City Star Editorial Board—the family will try again next week. “Move over, ICE agents, because Platte County is here to compete in this contest of gratuitous kicks,” stated the editorial board. “In fact, if officials at the Platte County jail, where Jamal is being held, were trying to come off as cartoon villains, well then kudos, friends.”