NORTHAMPTON — Ellen McShane said she’s been instructed to pack her fiance’s bag in preparation for what could be his deportation to Iraq later this month.

Niberd Alzendi Abdalla, 57, came to the U.S. at 15, and now after over 40 years here, the Hampshire County man has no connections in his native country. Advocates say war-torn Iraq cannot offer him the level of care required for his respiratory issues and his Kurdish background could render him a political target.

Attorney Buz Eisenberg said Abdalla is among some 1,500 Iraqi immigrants without criminal records who face deportation later this month. The American Civil Liberties Union successfully bargained for two consecutive stays of deportation for the group, which he says remain in effect through 11:59 p.m. on July 24.

“These are anything but rapists and murderers. These are the ones that reported in dutifully,” Eisenberg said at a rally for Abdalla that drew about 120 people to the steps of City Hall on Tuesday. “The most compliant people in the immigrant community — those are the ones they want to send back to uncertain fates.”

McShane told the crowd how she met Abdalla in Central Park nearly 40 years ago, how they fell in love and she got pregnant. They wanted to get married, she said, but both of their families forbade it because of their different ethnicities.

She said in the familial scuffle they’d lost contact with each other, but “through the magic of Facebook” found each other again seven years ago. Still, she said, they had to wait to marry since both were caring for ailing parents in different states.

“We were thrilled at this point in our late lives to find one another again and make a plan to be happy. And then, June 8th happened,” she said, sobbing.

Abdalla has been held since his detention at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston.

“I pray our government will look at him as a human being — not a number to be totted up and fed to the media.”

McShane is unclear on the specifics surrounding Abdalla’s case, but said he had applied for legal status and was denied. A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement was unable to answer questions about Abdalla’s case before press time.

About 1,500 people had signed a petition calling for Abdalla’s release as of 5 p.m. Tuesday.

“We need Niberd to be returned home to his family and the life that he has built here,” said Margaret Sawyer, program coordinator for the new ACLU Immigrant Protection Program of Western Massachusetts and an organizer with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center.

Both organizations are helping with Abdalla’s case, and Eisenberg — a coordinating attorney with the IPP who has a 10-year background in defending Guantanamo Bay detainees — is working the case pro bono.

Deportations ‘heating up’

Sawyer said “things are heating up” with regard to deportations, and the center’s Sanctuary in the Streets program needs all the help it can get. She said some 1,700 people have so far signed up to help with the initiative, which provides legal advice and advocacy for undocumented immigrants on ICE’s radar.

“We’re here because we don’t want to rip more people from their families,” Sawyer said.

“Stop the raids,” the crowd sang at Tuesday’s rally, borrowing from an anti-Apartheid South African song. “My friends, you do not walk alone.”

Eduardo Samaniego, of Amherst, said he came to show support for Abdalla. Though he himself is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who feels targeted by Donald Trump’s administration, Samaniego said it’s important for him to openly join his community in solidarity with  Abdalla.

The fact that Abdalla has been here for 41 years and has been “torn away,” he said, “shows how immensely unjust and outdated our immigration system is, and the urgent need for reform.”

Samaniego said while America celebrated its birthday last week, Abdalla sat in a cell awaiting deportation to a country he hasn’t known since he was a child.

“This is why I’m here with you today,” he said. “We want Niberd home, and we want him home now!”

Marty Nathan, a local activist and physician, arrived at the rally not realizing the man she knew lovingly as “Bert” was the same man for whom the rally had been organized. Recognizing him from his photo, Nathan said Abdalla brought his sick parents to her office for decades, never missing an appointment. She said their health had been failing since their arrival in the U.S. and he never missed a beat when it came to their care.

Now, she said, his mother is dying and he’s not around to help.

“This strikes to our soul as a nation,” Nathan said. “We must be outraged, as much as they try to normalize this.”

ACLU takes stand

Bill Newman, director of the Western Regional Law Office of the ACLU of Massachusetts, said the ACLU continues to stand — along with many of the people of this region — at the forefront of the fight against what he called unconstitutional and immoral detentions.

“We need to stand together, because together is how we will win this fight,” he belted out. “We will not be silenced!”

A group of interfaith leaders also came to the rally to show support.

“He has been calling this place home since before I was born,” said the Rev. Vanessa Cardinale, of Amherst South Congregational Church. “He is ours and we are his. We are here to claim him.”

Rabbi Justin David, of Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton, who was arrested earlier this year with 19 other rabbis during a sit-in outside Trump International Hotel in New York City, earned boisterous applause from the crowd.

“We live in a time when our democracy is under threat,” he said to the crowd. He gestured around at the throng of people. “This is what democracy looks like!”

After the rally, people came up to McShane to offer hugs and their favorite stories about her fiance. One neighbor said Abdalla had helped her get back into her art studio after she’d accidentally locked herself outside. Another said he was always there to baby-sit in a pinch.

“He was all about helping people,” McShane said.

She said that instead of being here to help his friends and family, he’s sitting in a cell fighting with guards to give him his inhaler.

McShane said it doesn’t help his case at all that his son serves in the U.S. Navy. Nor does it help that Abdalla is engaged to a U.S. citizen, she said as she flashed the engagement ring he’d purchased for her at Hannoush Jewelers.

She couldn’t stop crying.

“I fell apart at the seams,” she said, wiping away tears. “You finally think you’re gonna be happy and now this.”

Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com. 

]]>