detention

COLLINGSWOOD, N.J. — The shawarma, falafel wraps and baklava at Jersey Kebab are great, but many of its patrons are also there these days for a side of protest.

A New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia has rallied around the restaurant’s Turkish owners since federal officers detained the couple last February because they say their visas had expired.

In fact, business has been so good since Celal and Emine Emanet were picked up early in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that they have moved to a bigger space in the next town over. Their regulars don’t seem to mind.

The family came to the U.S. seeking freedom

Celal Emanet, 52, first came to the U.S. in 2000 to learn English while he pursued his doctorate in Islamic history at a Turkish university. He returned in 2008 to serve as an imam at a southern New Jersey mosque, bringing Emine and their first two children came, too. Two more would be born in the U.S.

Before long, Celal had an additional business of delivering bread to diners. They applied for permanent residency and believed they were on their way to receiving green cards.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began and the delivery trucks were idled, Celal and Emine, who had both worked in restaurants in Turkey, opened Jersey Kebab in Haddon Township. Business was strong from the start.

It all changed in a moment

On Feb. 25, U.S. marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested the couple at the restaurant. Celal was sent home with an ankle monitor, but Emine, now 47, was moved to a detention facility more than an hour’s drive away and held there for 15 days.

With its main cook in detention and the family in crisis, the shop closed temporarily.

Although the area is heavily Democratic, the arrests of the Emanets signaled to many locals that immigration enforcement during President Trump’s second term wouldn’t stop at going after people with criminal backgrounds who are in the U.S. illegally.

“They were not dangerous people — not the type of people we were told on TV they were looking to remove from our country,” Haddon Township Mayor Randy Teague said.

Supporters organized a vigil and raised $300,000 that kept the family and business afloat while the shop was closed — and paid legal bills. Members of Congress helped, and hundreds of customers wrote letters of support.

Space for a crowd

As news of the family’s ordeal spread, customers new and old began packing the restaurant. The family moved it late last year to a bigger space down busy Haddon Avenue in Collingswood.

They added a breakfast menu and for the first time needed to hire servers besides their son Muhammed.

The location changed, but the restaurant still features a sign in the window offering free meals to people in need. That’s honoring a Muslim value, to care for “anybody who has less than us,” Muhammed said.

Judy Kubit and Linda Rey, two friends from the nearby communities of Medford and Columbus, respectively, said they came to Haddon Township last year for an anti-Trump “No Kings” rally and ate a post-protest lunch at the kebab shop.

“We thought, we have to go in just to show our solidarity for the whole issue,” Kubit said.

Last month, with the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis dominating the headlines, they were at the new location for lunch.

The legal battle hasn’t ended

The Emanets desperately want to stay in the U.S., where they’ve built a life and raised their family.

Celal has a deportation hearing in March, and Emine and Muhammed will also have hearings eventually.

Celal said moving back to Turkey would be bad for his younger children. They don’t speak Turkish, and one is autistic and needs the help available in the U.S.

Also, he’d be worried about his own safety because of his academic articles. “I am in opposition to the Turkish government,” he said. “If they deport me, I am going to get very big problems.”

The groundswell of support has shown the family they’re not alone.

“We’re kind of fighting for our right to stay the country,” Muhammed Emanet said, “while still having amazing support from the community behind us. So we’re all in it together.”

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

Five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have been released from a US immigration detention facility, following an order by a judge who accused ICE agents of traumatising children as they pursue the Trump administration’s deportation quotas.

A federal judge in the United States has ordered the release of a five-year-old boy and his father from a facility in Texas amid an outcry over their detention during an immigration raid in Minnesota.

In a decision on Saturday, US District Judge Fred Biery ruled Liam Conejo Ramos’s detention as illegal, while also condemning “the perfidious lust for unbridled power” and “the imposition of cruelty” by “some among us”.

The scathing opinion came as photos of the boy – clad in a blue bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took him away in a suburb of the city of Minneapolis – became a symbol of the immigration crackdown launched by President Donald Trump’s administration.

“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children,” Biery wrote in his ruling.

“Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of ‌the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. But that result should occur through a more orderly ‌and humane policy than currently in place.”

The judge did not specify the deportation quota he was referring to, but Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has previously said there was a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day.

The ongoing crackdown in the state of Minnesota is the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, according to federal officials, with some 3,000 agents deployed. The surge has prompted daily clashes between activists and immigration officers, and led to the killings of two American citizens by federal agents.

The deadly operation has sparked nationwide protests as well as mass mobilisation efforts and demonstrations in Minnesota.

According to the Columbia Heights Public School District in Minneapolis, Liam was one of at least four students detained by immigration officials in the suburb this month.

Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents took the child from a running car in the family’s driveway on January 20, and told him to knock on the door of his home, a tactic that she said amounted to using him as “bait” for other family members.

The government has denied that account, with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin claiming that an ICE officer remained with Liam “for the child’s safety” while other officers apprehended his father.

Vice President JD Vance, who has vigorously defended ICE’s tactics in Minnesota, told a news conference that although such arrests were “traumatic” for children, “just because you’re a parent, doesn’t mean that you get complete immunity from law enforcement”.

The Trump administration has said that Conejo Arias arrived in the US illegally in December 2024 from Ecuador, but the family’s lawyer says they have an active asylum claim that allows them to remain in the country legally.

Following their detention, the boy and his father were sent to a facility in Dilley in Texas, where advocacy groups and politicians have reported deplorable conditions, including illnesses, malnourishment and a fast-growing number of detained children.

Texas Representatives Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett visited the site earlier this week. Liam slept throughout the 30-minute visit, Castro said, and his father reported that he was “depressed and sad”.

Biery’s ruling on Saturday included a photo of the boy, as well as several Bible quotes: “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’,” and “Jesus wept”.

The episode, Biery wrote, made apparent “the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence”. Biery drew a comparison between Trump’s administration and the wrongdoings that then-author, future President Thomas Jefferson, mounted against England’s King George, including sending “Swarms of Officers to harass our People” and creating “domestic Insurrection”.

There was no immediate comment from the Department of Justice and DHS.

The Law Firm of Jennifer Scarborough, which is representing Liam and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, said in a statement that the pair will soon be able to reunite with the rest of their family.

“We are pleased that the family will now be able to focus on being together and finding some peace after this traumatic ordeal,” the statement said.

Minnesota officials have been calling on the Trump administration to end its immigration ‍crackdown in the state. But a federal judge on Saturday denied a request from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and other officials to issue a preliminary injunction that would have halted the federal operation.

Trump, meanwhile, has ordered DHS to, “under no circumstances”, get involved with protests in Democratic-led cities unless they ask for federal help, or federal property is threatened.

SAN ANTONIO — A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement.

Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, with a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, have been a rallying point in the outcry over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. It also led to a protest at the Texas family detention center and a visit by two Democratic members of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, an appointee of President Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.

In his order Saturday, Biery wrote: “Apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence,” suggesting the Trump administration’s actions echo those that Thomas Jefferson enumerated as grievances against England.

Biery also included in his ruling a photo of Liam Conejo Ramos and references to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ’Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,’” and “Jesus Wept.”

He’s not the only federal judge who has been tough on ICE recently. A Minnesota-based judge with a conservative pedigree said this week that ICE had disobeyed nearly 100 court orders in the last month.

Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has said there’s a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day. It’s that figure that the judge seemed to describe as a “quota.”

Spokespersons from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers in Minnesota used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an “abject lie.” It said the father ran off and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

The government says the elder Arias entered the U.S. illegally in December 2024. The family’s lawyer says he has a pending asylum claim that allows him to remain in the country.

During a visit Wednesday to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, by U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, the boy slept in the arms of his father, who said Liam was frequently tired and not eating well at the detention facility housing about 1,100 people, according to Castro.

Detained families report poor conditions including worms in food, fighting for clean water, and poor medical care at the detention center since its reopening last year. In December, a report filed by ICE acknowledged it held about 400 children longer than the recommended limit of 20 days.