Courtesy of The Tarabishi Family.
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Wael Tarabishi has lived for more than two decades with Pompe disease, a neurological disorder that has slowly deteriorated his muscles and taken away his ability to breathe and eat on his own. Since he was a child, he’s navigated the grim illness alongside his father, Maher Tarabishi, who has been a caregiver, a medical advocate and a “hero” to his son.
Now, though, Wael is on his own.
In October, Maher was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities while checking in to ICE’s Dallas Field Office for a routine appointment. Since his father was arrested, Wael has been struck by illnesses and infections that have landed him in the ICU on two separate occasions.
Family members worry that without Maher’s caregiver experience, Wael’s condition will continue to deteriorate. During a press conference on Tuesday, the Tarabishi family urged immigration officials to grant Maher a release on humanitarian grounds from the Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, so that he can resume his care for his son. Through media appearances, the family has urged President Donald Trump to consider what it means to be a father.
“Maher is not a criminal. He is not dangerous. He is a father who has spent his whole life caring for his disabled son,” said Shahd Arnaout, Maher’s daughter-in-law. “Wael cannot move. He cannot care for himself. His father knows how to keep him breathing, how to keep him alive.”
Maher’s family says he came to the United States in the ’90s from Jordan. By the time his application for asylum was denied, he’d been living in the U.S. for over a decade. It took another two years for Maher’s appeal of the decision to be rejected. Although deportation orders had been issued, he was granted deferred action and supervised release in 2011, allowing him to continue caring for Wael.
Courtesy of the Tarabishi Family.
For 14 years, Maher has attended field office check-in meetings as part of his supervised release in the U.S. without issue. In that time, he has “never even gotten a speeding ticket,” family members said. But in October, when Maher went to his appointment, the family went hours before they heard from their father again. When he finally called, he informed them he’d been detained.
“Our lives have flipped upside down tremendously,” said Maher’s nephew, Loui Tarabishi. “Mr. President Trump, my uncle has never done anything wrong in this country. He has followed the laws, abided by everything. He’s followed immigration appointments on the dot. He would never skip an appointment, would never be late, none of that.”
In a statement to NBC 5, ICE officials have said Maher’s arrest is due to his association with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the political group that represents Palestinians internationally and is recognized in most countries as a national representative for the Palestinian people. In 1987, the United States designated the group a terrorist organization, although a 1988 waiver has allowed for the government to maintain contact with the body. The PLO is not currently listed in the U.S. Department of State’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.
“ICE’s successful arrest of Tarabishi shows clear evidence of the game-changing impact the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts are having to restore common sense to our immigration system, strengthen national security and public safety in our country by arresting terrorists like this where prior administrations recklessly gambled with the safety of all Americans by allowing foreign terrorists, transnational gang members and other violent criminal aliens to remain in the U.S,” ICE said in a statement.
Maher’s family has denied the accusation that their father is associated with a terrorist organization, emphasizing his clean criminal record and compliance with government-mandated immigration check-ins. Maher’s case is strikingly similar to that of Marwan Marouf, the Richardson community leader who ICE arrested in September.
Like Maher, Marouf had lived in the United States for decades before being arrested by ICE. He also requested a release from ICE detention on humanitarian grounds due to a medical condition. That request was ultimately denied after Department of Homeland Security officials claimed that Marouf’s association with the Islamic charity the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development made him ineligible for a humanitarian release. The federal government designated the HLF a terrorist organization in 2001, claiming the group had sent money to Hamas.
After 60 days of detention in the same Bluebonnet facility where Maher is now held, Marouf accepted a deportation order because he worried about his health. Maher’s family hopes for a different outcome.
“He is the one who keeps me alive when I’m at my weakest. Without him, I am nothing,” said his son Wael in a statement. “My father is my only hope. He’s my legs, he’s my lungs, he’s the voice when I cannot speak. He’s my safety when I’m afraid. When ICE took my father, they didn’t just take him away. They took my care, they took my strength, and they took my chance to live.”
