UPDATE as of Tuesday, January 19th:

Just a day before Anees was set to be on a plane to Jordan he got word that ICE would be granting him a 30-day extension so that they can look into his case more.  This small win is largely due to the support he was able to get from Congressman Conyers office, and the support of each of YOU.  Anees is eternally thankful to all of you and can’t wait for this extension to turn into a permanent fix.

Stay tuned for action steps!!

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Update as of 1/15/09

On Wednesday, January 20th Anees Sous will be on a plane back to Palestine, a country he left some 28 years ago.  Since that time Anees has been living in Hamtramck, MI.  Here he has raised a wonderful family of six, all U.S. citizens.  His oldest two daughters just graduated from the University of Michigan, one majoring in Mathematics and another Biology.  Anees himself has been an outstanding member of the community, he started his own small business and even, at one point, employed 4 others.

Anees’ e-mail for help came to us last Sunday, despite not having the capacity or time to take on a new venture, I felt like I just had to help so I jumped in and dragged the rest of Dreamactivist along for the ride.

We started a website for his campaign, a twitter account, a facebook page, and a new and improved change.org petition.  We were able to get him a speaking spot at a 1,500 person plus Wednesday rally hosted by Reform Immigration for America.  We have also recently launched a national sign-on letter with signatures from the following organizations:

• America’s Voice — D.C.
• United We Dream Network — D.C.
• Council on American-Islamic Relations — MI
• Arab American and Chaldean Council — MI
• Al-Ikhlas Academy — MI
• Kent Wong, Director – UCLA Labor Center — CA
• Immigrant Legal Resource Center — CA
• Voces de la Frontera — WI
• New York State Youth Leadership Council — NY
  
• Youth Leadership Initiative — TX

Anees’ daughter, Tasneem tries to explain how her family is coping with the crisis:

Life is going to be very hard without my father; my younger siblings were saying with tears “How can we live without daddy?  Life is very hard without our father; none of us can imagine waking up a day without seeing him around, without telling him good morning or good night, if any of us are sad who else are we going to go to, when we need someone to be there for us, who else would be there for us other than him,”

At the rally on Wednesday it was clear that Anees’ priorities have always been his children, he talked about sacrificing so much in his own life so that his children would not have to sacrifice as much in their own.  And yet after all of this his daughters who dream of going on to get a masters will now have to put that on hold so that they can go out and work to help the family survive.  His testimony is here:

A rally in support of Anees will be held on Tuesday, January 19th.  We know it is scheduled less than a day before his scheduled departure, but we are hoping that immigration will have a change of heart before then and the rally can be a time to celebrate and not a panicked last chance at saving this wonderful man.

If you have not signed the petition at change.org please do that now, if you can send a note to friends and family please do that as well.  If you have more time on your hands amidst all this crisis going on all around us, then please make a few calls to ICE / DHS as well.   Numbers can be found at the Anees Action Center.