The restrictions placed on Maher Tarabishi will haunt him long after his 30-year-old son, Wael, is laid to rest.
For decades, Maher, 62, had cared for his son as he struggled with a rare genetic condition called Pompe disease, which causes muscle weakness and severe respiratory problems.
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The disease required round-the-clock care and dozens of surgeries, which Maher carefully attended to.
But Maher was abruptly separated from Wael last year, as part of United States President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Last Friday, when Wael drew his final breath, Maher was not there to hold him. When Wael’s funeral is held on Thursday at a mosque in Arlington, Texas, Maher will once again be absent, unable to say his final goodbyes.
That is because Maher remains in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and in each instance, his requests for a temporary release have been denied.
“Wael’s last wish was, ‘Let me at least just see my father. Let me at least hold his hand,’” Shahd Arnaout, Wael’s sister-in-law, told Al Jazeera.
Maher, a Jordanian national, had lived in the US for years under a so-called “supervision order” from a court. It allowed him to remain in the country to care for his son, despite a 2006 order calling for his removal.
But the conditions of his stay included annual check-ins with ICE, which Maher completed for more than two decades. Over that time, he provided immigration agents with documents explaining his son’s complications from his surgeries and the care he needed to survive.
But on October 28, 2025, something changed. During Maher’s last check-in, ICE agents took him into detention as part of Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
His family spent months trying to convince officials of the role Maher played in his son’s life. Their petitions went unheeded.
Arnaout and other family members attended to Wael in his absence, but they were acutely aware of the unique bond the father and son had built over their 30-year relationship.
“It was very scary, because we didn’t want to do anything wrong,” Arnaout recounted. “His body was very fragile. We had to wait for Maher to call, so we could ask the questions we needed to ask.”
“One time, his feeding tube came all the way up,” she added. “We had to wait until Maher called so we could show him through video whether we were doing the right steps or not.”
‘ICE is responsible’
Wael’s family draws a direct line between his death and his father’s enforced absence, noting the 30-year-old experienced a physical and psychological decline as the months of separation stretched on.
During that time, he twice ended up in intensive care, and his health deteriorated during his most recent visit.
“ICE is responsible for the death of Wael,” Arnaout said. “They may not kill him with a bullet, but they killed him inside.”
As it became clear Wael’s final moments were approaching, family lawyer Ali Elhorr made a desperate appeal to ICE officials for Maher’s release.
First, Elhorr travelled to an ICE field office in Dallas, where he was told to contact the Bluebonnet Detention Center, where Maher was being held.
He was then given an email and sent back to the Dallas field office, before being redirected to another detention centre in Alvarado, Texas, an hour’s drive away.
Finally, Elhorr found the docket officer in charge and explained the situation. Soon after, he received an update.
“Basically, Maher would only be allowed a virtual [visit],” Elhorr recalled. “So basically, a Zoom call.”
Maher was not able to be in the room as his son died. Elhorr’s efforts to gain Maher a supervised release for Wael’s funeral met a similar end.
“Initially, it seemed like they had agreed. They asked me to send through email exact funeral details, like times and locations of the different events, and it seemed like they were actually working to move him,” Elhorr said.
“And then, about 15 minutes later, I get another call from the officer who said, ‘My director called me and told me that he would not be allowed to attend his funeral.’”
To Elhorr, the message was clear: “The decision was made from higher up.”
The government’s indifference to Maher’s requests has drawn nationwide outrage, as the family shared their story on a GoFundMe page to help raise money for their legal fees.
“It’s just no compassion. No moral compass. It’s shameful in this country,” said Mustafaa Carroll, the interim executive director of the Texas branch for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
“I have four sons. I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Carroll added. “They’re treating him like a hardened criminal.”
‘This has to stop’
According to his lawyer and family, Maher has no criminal history and no history of disobeying the provisions set out by immigration officials.
They are seeking to have Maher’s immigration case reopened after discovering that the individual who initially filed his immigration paperwork appears to have fraudulently posed as a lawyer.
Elhorr hopes the case, which is making its way through immigration court, could lead to Maher’s removal order being nixed. He has lived in the country since 1994.
ICE did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for information on Maher’s case.
However, in a statement to NBC News last year, an ICE spokesperson described Maher as a “criminal alien and self-admitted member of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO] – a murderous foreign terrorist organization that has carried out countless terrorist attacks and plane hijackings”.
Elhorr said the claim is as baffling as it is false. He emphasised that Maher has “zero involvement” with the PLO, which is an umbrella term for a coalition of Palestinian groups.
Furthermore, while the PLO was designated as a “terrorist” group by the US in 1987, it has been regularly granted waivers to maintain a diplomatic presence in the US.
For her part, Arnaout said Wael’s death has added a new dynamic to the push for Maher’s release.
“Maher was Wael’s arms, his legs, his lungs,” she said. “He has not been holding up. He is always alone, thinking about his son. We don’t want to lose him, too.”
