1) To See His Daughter Wake from a Coma
2) To See His Daughter Graduate from Medical School
As a law student at Rutgers, Mushrat has worked hard to make her dad, Mozammel Hoque, proud. Mozammel is under threat of deportation, after years of complying with regular “check-in” meetings at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Belsy also worked hard in school. She has just one year left at Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine. Her father, Felix Garcia, is currently being held in immigration jail, despite his lack of criminal record, and faces imminent deportation. Like Mozammel, Felix had been following the government’s requirements for years, attending check-in meetings with ICE officials faithfully, contributing to his community, and supporting his family.
But everything changed for people like Mozammel and Felix when the Trump Administration came into power. Parents like them were once celebrated for their sacrifices. They risked so much and worked so hard so that their children could have new opportunities. Parents like Mozammel and Felix were also once considered low priorities for deportation. Now they are at the top of the list, simply because they are easy to find.
Felix’s one wish has been to see his daughter Belsy graduate from medical school. Until recently, that was Mozammel’s wish too: to see Mushrat graduate from law school. After Mushrat was struck by a car this week and landed in a coma, he revised that dream.
Now, Mozammel simply wants to make sure he’s at her side when Mushrat wakes up and is asking the government to grant him that small mercy.
“There’s something horribly, horribly wrong about the government insisting on deporting a man whose daughter is in a coma. How cruel can you possibly be?” asked Lynn Tramonte, Deportation Defense Coordinator with America’s Voice.
“What we have here are two examples of young people working hard, succeeding in school and life, and making their fathers proud. Living the American dream. The fathers who raised them just want a chance to see them walk at graduation and complete a chapter in their lives,” she continued. “As Americans, we claim to value family. We believe that consequences for violating the law should be proportionate, not malicious. Yet under Trump, we’re turning our back on those values and taking a rubber stamp approach to deportation that is needless, senseless and cruel.”
For more on ICE’s sweeping and cruel deportation approach, see this and this at America’s Voice.
