The family of 59-year-old Ibrahim Souedan says he will likely be tortured and killed if he is deported back to his home country of Lebanon.
Souedan was supposed to get on a 6 p.m. Wednesday flight to leave the United States, but instead is at Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn with heart issues. His son Hadi says his father's health has declined from the stress and anxiety he is experiencing.
“He’s been really pale," said Souedan's son Hadi. "He hasn’t been eating. He’s just not the same.”
Souedan overstayed his visa back in 2004. An attorney for Souedan, Navih Ayad, says he was enlisted by the FBI to take down terrorist.
“He helped this government in protecting against terrorism," Ayad said. "He helped this government in the interest of national security, yet they feel it bestowed upon them to deport this individual that helped them."
His family now worries Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, will retaliate. Ayad says Souedan helped send a key figure in the terrorist group to prison.
“All the evidence points to that," Ayad said. "He will literally be tortured or possibly killed."
The Arab-American Civil Rights League worries about the message this deportation will send. That helping the government will not help immigrants stay here in America.
“It doesn’t make me, as a U.S. citizen, proud to say that I have absolutely zero faith in anything that the government has to say, particular with respect to these types of situations,” said Director of ACRL, Rula Aoun.
Ayad says they are now waiting and hoping the Board of Immigrations Appeals will give them a stay. If that happens, it would reopen the case for another hearing to persuade a judge to allow Souedan to stay.
