Family fights to prevent Humboldt Park restaurant owner's deportation, questions his care

The family of a Humboldt Park restaurant owner is fighting to stop his deportation to Pakistan while raising questions about his medical care in federal custody, after they say he collapsed at O’Hare Airport on Wednesday before he could be flown out of the country.

Meanwhile, the federal appeals court in Chicago has blocked deportation of 63-year-old Asif Amin Cheema, on a temporary basis, while it considers a longer-term order. Cheema is the owner of Best Sub #2 on North Avenue, and some also know him as Amin Choudry.

Cheema’s daughter, Rabia Amin, says he has been in federal custody since the early days of “Operation Midway Blitz.” She said he’s now being held in Clay County, Indiana. But details about the current state of his health are unclear.

William McLean, Cheema’s lawyer, said Cheema is “basically dying” in the feds’ custody, and “they’re doing just enough to keep him alive.”

Amin said her father has no criminal record and has “never even been arrested.”

“To see this happen to someone like him, it’s disgusting,” Amin said. “And it’s just horrible.”

She said her father has “severe” health issues, having previously suffered two heart attacks, high cholesterol and blood pressure. He was scheduled to be tested for colon cancer the week of his arrest.

A Homeland Security representative did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday. But in a court filing provided by Amin, the Justice Department argued that Cheema has been subject to a final order of removal since 1993. Amin said a previous attorney of Cheema’s failed to make him aware of it.

Her father had “no idea," she said.

Shelese Woods, a Justice Department lawyer based in Indianapolis, added that Cheema “also claims that he has chronic health conditions, which require monitoring, but does not explain how or why he cannot receive medical care in Pakistan."

McLean said Cheema should be given due process and allowed to exhaust his legal options before being deported — an action that would moot any benefit.

“If he were to get deported and he would later win that appeal, it would not do anything for him,” McLean said.

Cheema, the youngest of nine siblings, first traveled to the United States in the 1980s and eventually brought his family with him, Amin said. McLean wrote in a court filing that Cheema “entered the U.S. unlawfully” in 1989 “and has remained in the U.S. since that time.”

The family now lives in Addison, Amin said, but Cheema works at the restaurant in Humboldt Park “seven days a week, all day.”

She said he’s used the profits to support his five children, even fully funding Amin’s law degree. Amin said she, in turn, instructed her father that he’s entitled to call a lawyer if he’s ever stopped by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That day came on Sept. 17, when Cheema was arrested outside a Lake Street grocery store in Addison. She said he asked that he be allowed to call his daughter.

“They told him, ‘Either you come out of the car the nice way, or we smash your car window and force you out of the car the hard way,’ ” Amin said.

She said her father complied. That’s when he began a journey similar to others detained by ICE since September. Cheema was first taken to the ICE facility in Broadview, Amin said.

The controversial processing center has been the subject of a lawsuit in federal court, where former detainees testified that 150 people were held in a cell there at a time, and were forced to sleep on the floor near an open toilet.

A Justice Department lawyer has since said it is “back” to being a temporary processing center.

Cheema was soon transferred to a facility in Clay County, Indiana, Amin said. That’s where he’s spent most of his time in custody. But Sunday night, she said the family learned Cheema would be transferred — but they didn’t know where.

It wasn’t until three days later, on Wednesday morning, that Cheema called his family from O’Hare Airport to tell them “he was going to be sent home and deported.” But later, Amin said she received a second call.

It was an official with Resurrection Medical Center, she said, explaining that her father was in the emergency room. By the time Amin got there, she said she was told her father had already left, and she couldn’t see him anyway because he was in Border Patrol custody.

It wasn’t until Thursday, when the family finally spoke to Cheema, that they learned he “had collapsed while he was in Border Patrol custody” at the airport.

Cheema also told them that, in the days before his arrival at O’Hare, Cheema had been held in the Clinton County Jail in Indiana, where he was denied a chance to call his family or lawyer, and “he wasn’t given any of his medication,” Amin said.

When he arrived at O’Hare, Amin said her father was held in a room from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m.

“He didn’t feel good,” she said. “He felt like his brain was going to explode out of his head. He was knocking on the door, he was calling for help, he was trying to scream and get attention from the security cameras. Nobody catered to him.”

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Cheema’s deportation the same day. Briefing on a bid to block the deportation on a longer-term basis is set to end Monday.

Amin said her father was returned to Clay County after being diagnosed with only a “headache” at the hospital. She said she spoke to him Friday morning, and he told her he’d been “really really dizzy,” though fellow inmates were trying to help care for him.

She said her father wants his family to fight not just for him, but “for everybody” detained along with him. Meanwhile, she said her family has struggled to celebrate the holidays, including Thanksgiving, while hoping for his return.

“It’s hard to live life when your family’s not complete,” Amin said.