'His Children Need Him Here:' Wife Begs ICE To Free Husband

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Baba Sillah's wife and five children have not seen him in more than a month, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers grabbed him at the agency's downtown Manhattan offices in January.

"My father is caring, he is loving, he takes care of us and supports us," said Sillah's 10-year-old daughter Aminata, through tears. "Even through the tough times we always stick together."

Supporters joined the Aminata's family at 32BJ SEIU's Lower Manhattan headquarters Monday to demand ICE release Sillah, who has worked as an Upper East Side porter for more than a decade, and not deport him to his native Gambia.

"I need him here," said Mamou Drame Sillah, Baba's wife, who can no longer work during the day because he is not there to take care of their children; Ebribima, 16, Aminata, 10, Isha, 4 and 9 months-old Fatima.

"His children need him here," she said. Aminata called her father the family's "superhero."

Sillah, 48, was taken into ICE custody after checking in with immigration officials on Jan. 31 in an attempt to secure permanent residency status in the United States, family members and officials at Sillah's union, 32BJ SEIU, said Monday.

Since being taken into detention, Sillah has been held in ICE's Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny, New Jersey and has not been able to see his family.

Sillah received a last-minute stay of deportation last week minutes before boarding a plane to his native Gambia, lawyers from the New Sanctuary Coalition's Community Legal Defense team said Monday. The father of five called his wife at 7:45 p.m. before boarding an 8:20 p.m. flight and told her he would be forced to leave the country, attorneys Sarah Gillman and Gregory Copeland said. A judge issued the stay of deportation in the forty minutes between the phone call and the flight's departure.

Sillah will have a hearing on March 15 to determine whether his stay of deportation will be extended and whether the man will be able to return home to his wife and four children while his case moves forward, a spokeswoman for 32BJ SEIU said.

Four New York City congressional representatives — Adriano Espaillat, Yvette Clarke, Grace Meng and Gregory Meeks — and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer spoke Monday in support of reuniting Sillah with his family while his case for permanent residency moves forward.

Sillah has lived in New York City since 1993 and has worked on the Upper East Side since 2006.

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that Sillah was first told to leave the United States in 1999 and was later taken into custody in 2011 but wasn't deported because the agency could not "obtain the proper travel documents for his removal." The spokesperson also said Sillah has local criminal convictions, but did not say which crimes.

Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel & Motel Trades Council which counts Mamou Drame Sillah as a member, said Monday that immigrants like Baba and Mamou Sillah serve as the backbone of New York's economy by doing jobs that most native citizens don't desire.

"We simply want this gentleman to be released, so he can spend time with his family, so he can support his family and so he can work while his case is processed," Ward said Monday.