Photos: David Michael Howarth
In May 2025, we profiled Emine Emanet and her experience being detained by ICE. This month, we’re following up on the family just days after receiving devastating news.
When Muhammed Emanet gets home at night, there are diapers to change, children to chase and family waiting on the other side of a shared doorway.
His wife stays home with their two young children. His parents live next door. His younger siblings are constantly helping with the children. During the day, he runs Jersey Kebab in Collingswood and helps manage the family’s other business ventures. At night, he comes home to a house full of family.
“It’s always busy, always loud,” Emanet says. “At any given time, there are about 10 people in the house. Nobody really gets much sleep. The house is always chaotic, but it’s the kind of chaos that comes from being surrounded by family.”
Now, he fears everything he’s built could be taken from him.
Emanet has been living in the United States for almost 20 years. His wife and two children are American citizens, and he has a solid reputation for giving back to the community. (At Jersey Kebab, a sign hangs on the door reading: “Free food for anyone with a disability, homeless or simply cannot afford it.”)
After years of navigating the immigration system, Emanet says federal officials are threatening to deny the final step of a process he believed was nearly complete.
His deportation case, which began after he was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2020 while his visa extension was pending, was finally terminated earlier this year. His marriage-based green card petition had already been approved. He thought permanent residency was finally here.
Instead, he says he received notice that officials intend to deny his adjustment-of-status application, leaving him vulnerable to deportation.
“I kept saying to them, ‘I’m ready. The judge has approved everything. I’m married, my green card has been approved,’” Emanet says. “But they kept denying my case, pushing it back, dismissing it and delaying it.”
Now, he says, he is being told that he may have to leave the country and wait abroad while officials process his case.
“I thought I fit the criteria,” Emanet says. “I thought our family fit the criteria. But they’re telling us we don’t. That we do not deserve the chance to stay here lawfully.”
Changing immigration policies and tougher enforcement have created new obstacles for some immigrants trying to secure permanent residency. Because Emanet’s visa expired years ago, leaving the country could have serious consequences. Under federal immigration law, some immigrants who leave the United States after overstaying a visa can be barred from returning for up to 10 years. For Emanet, that possibility is devastating.
“My wife is an American citizen, and we have two children who are American citizens as well,” he says. “I’m the person my family depends on. They can’t make it without me.”
The prospect of returning to Turkey carries additional concerns. Emanet has not been back since he was a kid and says mandatory military service requirements could create further complications.
“If I were sent back, not only would it trigger the 10-year bar preventing me from returning to America, but Turkey would consider me a military runaway,” he says. “I could be put in jail and/or forced to serve in the military right as the country may be heading to war.”
The uncertainty is not new. Emanet says he has lived with it since he was a teenager. “I mean, it’s the same feeling I’ve had since I was 16 years old,” he says. “It felt like there was essentially nothing I could do.”
Even though he was in the country legally, being an immigrant was difficult. His father was the only one granted a social security number, leaving him and his family without privileges many take for granted. He remembers paying full tuition at college because he couldn’t access financial aid. He remembers working for his family business because he wasn’t legally allowed to get a job. He remembers being pulled over while carrying an international driver’s license because it was the only one he could legally obtain. More than anything, he remembers the fear.
“It’s the same feeling of uncertainty and desperation that I’ve lived with for more than half my life,” Emanet says. “It feels like the same story playing over and over again.”
Still, he refuses to let those feelings take over him.
“If I let those feelings consume me, it’s only going to make things worse,” he says. “I won’t be able to focus on my family, my business and everything else that’s depending on me.”
His parents remain in immigration proceedings as well.
“My case was supposed to be the easiest case in our family’s file,” he says. “Now they’re terrified because they’re saying, ‘If they deny your case, then what’s going to happen with ours?’”
Emanet has turned to the community for support, asking neighbors, customers and friends to submit letters attesting to his character.
“People have literally watched me grow up in this town,” he says. “They watched me play sports. They watched me grow up at Jersey Kebab. They watched me get married.”
Those letters, he hopes, will remind officials that his case is about more than paperwork.
“It’s not just paperwork and court dates,” Emanet says. “It’s families, businesses, children, responsibilities and people who are trying to build a life while navigating all of this at the same time.”
His father brought the family to America nearly 20 years ago with little more than hope and determination.
“When we came here, we had two suitcases,” Emanet says. “What we have today is the result of 20 years of sacrifice, hard work and perseverance.”
The thought of losing that life is difficult to comprehend.
“It breaks your heart to think that everything our family has worked for over the last two decades could be put at risk,” he says. “This is where my family is. This is where I want to stay.”
