Ralph Isenberg DREAMs of a Day When Deported Saad Nabeel Can Return to Frisco

By Robert Wilonsky Mon., Aug. 2 2010 at 11:39 AM

Categories: Immigration, News

For those unfamiliar with the story of Saad Nabeel, there's quite the extensive Wikipedia page -- but long story short, he's the Bangladeshi-born 19-year-old who, till recently, had been in the States since he was 3, when his folks came here seeking political asylum -- a request repeatedly denied. And thus, Saad was here illegally: The government told him, fine, he could stay in Frisco, where the family moved in 2002, till he was 18 -- but after that, adios. He'd be deported. And he was. And just like that, the Liberty High grad with a scholarship to the University of Texas at Arlington was gone. He tells his story in this YouTube video.

His friends here are trying to bring him back to North Texas -- there are, of course, the requisite petitions and Facebook pages. But this morning, Campus Progress checks in with Nabeel and writes about his last, best hope for returning to the U.S.: Senators Orin Hatch and Richard Durbin's DREAM Act, which would offer the children of illegal immigrants a way to citizenship. Former Dallas City Plan Commissioner-turned-immigration activist Ralph Isenberg has asked the Senate Judiciary Committee to amend the act, allowing students who've been deported the opportunity to return to the U.S. Says Isenberg, "There are not hundreds but thousands of these cases going on across the United States." In the meantime, Nabeel waits. And, writes Kristi Eaton, he's scared:

Saad Nabeel is afraid to leave his apartment. He lives in a small apartment with his parents in Dhaka, Bangladesh. But Nabeel doesn't know anything about Bangladesh. He doesn't speak Bengali, the country's official language, or understand Dhaka's local culture. Even its laws are a mystery to him. Because Nabeel looks and acts American, he feels that if he were to go out alone he could be kidnapped for ransom, something that happens fairly often in Bangladesh.

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