After 5 -Month Detainment, 2 Deportation Attempts, ICE Releases North Texas Woman

An Arlington woman was released from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, late Tuesday evening after nearly five months of detainment, attorneys announced in a statement Wednesday morning.

Ward Sakeik, a 22-year-old Palestinian woman who has lived in the United States since she was 8 years old, was detained by immigration officials in February after taking a domestic flight from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Sakeik and her husband, a U.S. citizen named Taahir Shaikh, selected the islands as their honeymoon destination so that Sakeik, who is in the process of applying for a green card, would not leave U.S. soil. 

Shaikh told reporters last month that Sakeik attended every immigration “check-in” appointment she’d been required to.

In the nearly five months Sakeik was held at an ICE detention facility, immigration officials attempted to deport her twice despite Sakeik being stateless and having no home country to return to. Sakeik was born in Saudi Arabia to refugee parents of Palestinian descent. She does not have a path to citizenship in either country.

Attorneys for Sakeik say ICE most recently attempted to deport the woman on the morning of June 30 despite a federal court order prohibiting her removal from the U.S. The attorneys say Sakeik “was awoken by guards who told her to pack her things and prepare to leave the facility immediately,” and that attempts to notify the officers of the court order went ignored.

ABC News reports that immigration officials responded, "It's not up to me," when Sakeik said a court order barred her deportation. During a previous deportation attempt on June 12, Sakeik was brought to the tarmac of the Fort Worth Alliance Airport and was told she would be sent to “the border of Israel,” another country where Sakeik does not have a path to citizenship, the statement says.

“The cruelty the government inflicted on Ward and her family puts in stark relief just how depraved this administration’s immigration policies are,” said Chris Godshall-Bennett, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and counsel to Sakeik, in a statement. “Let’s be clear: Ward was arrested and almost deported simply because she is Palestinian and ICE thought they could get away with it. The new American secret police are out of control, but the fault lies with generations of legislators who have happily demonized immigrants in their race to the fascist bottom.”

Sakeik was able to return to her North Texas home Tuesday evening, the statement says.