Last month, Riaz Talukder was told by immigration authorities that — despite living in this country for 36 years, having two US-born children and coping with his wife’s suffering from thyroid cancer — he had one month to pack his bags and leave.
Talukder’s stay of removal had been denied, and with few remaining legal options, he was instructed to report to 26 Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan on November 20 with his passport and a one-way ticket to Bangladesh.
Instead, after a month-long campaign that mobilized support from family, friends and strangers across New York City, Riaz walked back out of the ICE offices last week, reunited with his family and with a chance to reopen his case in the courts.
While the Talukder family is not yet out of the woods, they have been given the time and space to continue to fight to keep their family together.
And the rest of us have been given a timely reminder that — even under the Trump administration — when we fight, we can sometimes win.
The wide support that the Talukders got, and the way that support snowballed as his final check-in approached, shows the potential that exists when activists are able to put real faces on the lives being destroyed by the deportation machine, while building public opposition to their removals.
Not all immigrants facing deportation have the option to be public in the same way — which means so much of the war against immigrant communities takes place in the shadows, where ICE prefers to operate.
That’s why it’s all the more important that activists organize when people are able to stand up and publicly fight in order to bring the full dimension of this human catastrophe into the light — and shine a spotlight on the whole malignant system.
Speaking to at a press conference after Riaz’s release, Fahd Ahmed from DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) summarized all the factors that came together to win this case:
To have the media here to be watching something of this magnitude happen. To…