‘ICE Killed Him’: Arlington Family Asks ICE to Release Detained Father for Son’s Funeral

In many of her late-night conversations with her brother-in-law, Shahd Arnaout often promised Wael Tarabishi that she would do everything in her power to help the sick man reunite with his father, Maher Tarabishi, who has been in custody at a federal immigration detention center since October. 

Last Friday, though, Wael died, leaving that promise unfulfilled. The 30-year-old man succumbed to the effects of Pompe disease, a neurological disorder that has slowly deteriorated his muscles over the course of his life, and an illness that doctors expected would kill him by age 10. 

Wael’s life, Arnaout said, was a testament to Maher’s dedication to his son, whom he spent the last two decades caring for. And Wael’s sudden fall into critical illness, she believes, is a direct result of Maher’s care ending after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities while checking in to a routine appointment at the Dallas ICE field office on Oct. 28. 

“It was very rare for Wael to go to the hospital when Maher was around. The last time Wael spent 30 days inside the ICE was 15 years ago,” Arnaout told the Observer. “But within the three months that Maher was gone, Wael went to the hospital twice, and on the last time, he spent 30 days in the ICU. And on the 30th day, he passed away.

As Wael’s condition declined, the Tarabishi family petitioned for Maher’s release from the Bluebonnet Detention Center so that he could resume care of his son. Then they asked that Maher be allowed to say goodbye. Those requests, they say, were denied. 

Another indignity was the hours the family was forced to wait to notify Maher that Wael had died. Those who have a loved one in ICE detention are not able to contact their family member directly; instead, they must wait for the detainee to call them. When Maher finally called the Tarabishis, they had to tell him that Wael had died over the phone.

“He couldn’t take the news whatsoever. He was saying, ‘You’re joking. You’re lying to me. Please tell me the truth. This is not the truth,’” said Aranout. “I’m trying to calm him down. I’m not trying to lose him, too. I’m trying to let him know that we are doing our best to let him out. He’s going crazy because the person he took care of for 30 years, he [wasn’t there] when he was dying.”

The family is pleading for Maher to be released for Wael’s funeral, but it’s a request Arnaout has little faith in. ICE did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment. 

The Tarabishi family says that Maher first came to the U.S. in the ‘90s and spent more than a decade living in North Texas, starting a family while going through the slow process of applying for asylum. In 2011, an immigration court acknowledged that although Maher’s asylum application had not been approved, his presence in the U.S. was necessary to care for Wael’s condition. He was granted deferred action and supervised release, and for 14 years, has attended check-ins at the ICE field office during which time he has “never even gotten a speeding ticket.” 

ICE officials have claimed that Maher was arrested because of 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. The U.S. briefly recognized the group as a terrorist organization in the 1980s, although it does not today. Still, in a statement, ICE said Maher’s arrest was part of the effort to remove “foreign terrorists, transnational gang members and other violent criminal aliens” from the U.S. 

The Tarabishi family has denied that characterization of their father, pointing instead to the decades of care he gave to his son. 

As soon as Maher was arrested, the rest of the family stepped up as best as they could to care for Wael. But Aranout said they quickly realized that the work Maher had been shouldering alone was the job of five people. Maher was the one who knew best how to clean Wael’s trach, grind down his medicine, bathe him, and advocate for him with doctors. Each time Maher called from Bluebonnet in the early days of his detainment, they’d answer the phone with a list of questions about his process for keeping Wael healthy. 

Still, Maher’s absence took its toll. While in the hospital, Aranout said Wael began taking medications for depression and anxiety — issues he’d never experienced before — because the separation from his father was so distressing. With Wael’s death, the family is grieving two losses, she said. 

As the Tarabishi family asks for compassion for Maher, two fatal shootings involving federal agents in Minneapolis have inspired a broader reckoning of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Democrats have demanded a total overhaul of the agency, while President Donald Trump has softened his rhetoric surrounding federal presence in Minnesota in recent days.  

But even if a national de-escalation occurs, the Tarabishi family will still be mourning. 

“It’s too late for my family, but it’s not too late for other families. We’re not selfish,” said Arnaout. “How many people need to die for this to stop? They’re killing unarmed, innocent people. ICE may not have killed [Wael] with a bullet, but they killed him from inside.”