U.S. Seeks to Deport Immigrant Father of Autistic Child

Twenty-four year old Fariha Ambia is used to helping her 15 year-old sister Faeeza with basic tasks such as feeding herself and getting dressed. Faeeza has severe austism and can barely speak.

"If you tell her, 'Faeeza go to the bathroom' she'll go but she won’t turn on the light, she won’t close the door," she said. "After a while then she'll do it and then after that I have to go back, check on her, clean her."

Fariha Ambia and her brother suddenly became their sister's only caretakers last month after immigration agents detained their father, Mohammed Ambia, at a regular check-in. He's now in a detention center in Louisiana and could be deported back to his native Bangladesh as soon as this week.

"This is not really an immigration case so much as it is a case about the rights of a 15-year-old American girl," said Ambia's lawyer, Lorenz Wolffers, explaining Faeeza was born in the U.S.

"We are asking the American government to exercise discretion here and to let Mr. Ambia come back to his family for at least a few months so he can make arrangements that Faeeza will be taken care of."

Because Ambia, 57, was already found deportable, Wolffers is hoping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will allow him to stay a little longer for humanitarian reasons. "He worked long hours, worked extra shifts, paid his taxes" and cared for his children, said Wolffers.

Ambia came to the U.S. in 1985 and worked legally but overstayed a visa. In 2006, Wolffers said he was convicted of buying an illegal ID when he was desperate to go home to visit his ailing father. Wolffers said he cooperated with authorities investigating the ID scam that victimized him, and was sentenced to 12 months' probation. Afterwards, the government allowed him to stay and report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regularly.

Prior to being detained last month, Ambia worked as a waiter at a midtown hotel. He was the sole breadwinner for the family because his wife lives in Bangladesh.

Faeeza's 19-year-old brother Mohammed said the siblings tried living with their mother and an older sister in Bangladesh, but Faeeza acted out because the schools there didn't have adequate programs for kids with autism.

"She wouldn’t listen to anybody, she would throw things around," he explained, of her behavior in Bangladesh. "She would pee on the bed and everything. She wouldn’t listen at all."

But after coming back to New York in 2014, he said her behavior improved markedly at a public school for children with special needs. 

"She became perfectly fine, now she listens," he said.

Both siblings said they want to continue caring for Faeeza. But they'd need the city to pay for her part-time nanny. Their father has been paying for a caretaker, because Fariha and Mohammed both go to college. They'd like to rent out their father's bedroom to a female relative to help pay the bills so they can continue their degrees. Fariha wants to become a doctor and Mohammed wants to work in information technology.

"My dad’s not a man who’s going to accept the word 'I give up,'" said Mohammed, explaining that their father paid for all of them to have a better life, including Faeeza.

Immigration advocates believe children with special needs are in danger now that the Trump administration is detaining more immigrants, regardless of their circumstances.

The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama also deported many parents of vulnerable children through the use of workplace raids and targeted enforcement actions — causing some to go hungry or even enter foster care. But around 2013, the Obama Administration began to consider humanitarian factors. Since Trump took office, those priorities have fallen by the wayside, according to Jessica Jones, policy counsel in the advocacy office of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services in Washington, D.C.

"Because the Trump administration has made these announcements about really writing this blank check for enforcement, but didn’t couple it with any sort of humanitarian public interest factors, I do think that has resulted to widespread enforcement actions in particular impacting a number of U.S. citizen children," she explained.

Since January, the government has deported two men in the Midwest who were the primary breadwinners for children with cerebral palsy and autism. The mother of a child with cancer was allowed to remain, however.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not discuss Ambia's case. When possible, the agency said its policy is to help arrange resources for children. It also said parents who are ordered removed can take their children with them.

Fariha Ambia said she spoke to her father this week, and he gave her words of advice. "Even if I go back, I'll tell you what to do," she said he told her. "You'll handle it, you're a big girl, you're responsible."

She said she's tired and anxious, but she doesn't want to let her father down, or her younger sister.

October 8: This story has been updated to reflect that Ambia tried to visit his ailing father in 2006, not his mother.