Bangladeshi mother in US gets chance to 'live her life'

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Brajesh Upadhyay, Washington
Published : 04:00, Nov 16, 2019 | Updated : 09:56, Nov 16, 2019

When Salma Sikandar found online that her asylum appeal had been granted, her first reaction was that of disbelief. Soon it turned to tears of joy and the Connecticut-based Bangladeshi family huddled and cried.
“She is very excited, but she hasn’t stopped crying,” her son Samir Mahmud told the Bangla Tribune.
For Sikandar, it’s a journey that began 20 years ago when she arrived in the United States in 1999 on a tourist visa. It was here that she met her husband, Anwar Mahmud, a political refugee from Bangladesh, who too did not have legal status.
In all these years, Sikandar’s husband appealed for asylum on the grounds of being a religious minority in Bangladesh, who could face persecution upon his return. It was rejected and so were her appeals to stay in the US to take care of their son Samir, who was born in the US.
Last year, the journey came precariously close to an end when Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials ordered her to be deported from the US by August 23, just days before her son was to start college.
Sikandar’s husband, Anwar Mahmud, went on a hunger strike outside the office of ICE in Hartford, Connecticut. Several others, most of them strangers, joined him in solidarity. Local officials, prominent politicians and lawmakers voiced their support.
Sikandar’s movements were monitored with GPS ankle bracelets. Samir says that many a time the thought did cross his mind that he may be forced to stay in the US without his parents.
“It was only 24 hours before she was to be put on a flight that an immigration judge granted a one-year stay on deportation,” said Samir.
The family hadn’t stopped fighting since then and more than a year later their prayers have been answered. Both Sikandar and her husband have now been granted asylum and after one year of asylee status, they can apply for green cards.
“She can now live her life freely just like me,” says Samir, who is a US citizen by birth and now in the second year of college. He plans to join politics after finishing his engineering course at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut.
They also plan to travel and take vacations as a family, something they could not do because of their undocumented status.
“She would like to go to Florida and maybe Hawaii,” says Samir. What about Bangladesh?
“That could be her first foreign trip, but there’s no urgency at the moment,” he says.
The family also hopes to help and fight for other Bangladeshi families who face a similar struggle.

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