Saheeda Nadeem
Saheeda Nadeem came to the United States 14 years ago on a non-immigrant visa. Her goal was to create a better life for her two elementary-aged children, her daughter, Lareb, and her son, Samad.
Saheeda was born in rural Pakistan 63 years ago. Her parents helped her to gain her education and then, while she was still a teenager and sensing that her opportunities would be greatly limited if they stayed in Pakistan, her family immigrated to Kuwait, where Saheeda became a domestic servant. After years in Kuwait, Saheeda still wanted more opportunity for her children than what she had been given. That’s why she decided to come to the U.S. around 2005.
Saheeda and her kids found a home in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the woman from Pakistan would become a beloved part of the community. She is known as “Auntie Saheeda” for her decade of work with disabled adults in a group home setting and as a parental figure for orphaned refugee children relocated to the Kalamazoo area.
After her visa ran out, Saheeda was granted annual deferments from deportation. But after Trump took office, ICE ordered her deported back to Pakistan, a country she has not set foot in for more than 40 years and where she has no known family or friends.
The area where Saheeda is from in Pakistan is very strict in its Muslim teachings. While Saheeda is herself a devout Muslim, she fears that without having a male family member, her life will be in danger. For these and other reasons, Saheeda’s family and friends believe she may be killed if deported to Pakistan.
For her part, Saheeda says she simply can’t leave her children. Sadly, her daughter, Lareb, was killed in a car wreck in 2016 just as she was graduating from college. Saheeda took comfort in visiting her beloved daughter’s grave every single day before being forced to take sanctuary in Kalamazoo’s First Congregational Church. She told me not being able to visit her daughter’s grave is the hardest part about being in sanctuary. When asked if she struggles with boredom after working so many hours prior to being in sanctuary, she smiles and says, “No, I eat three times a day and I pray five times a day. I am still very busy.”
Saheeda’s son Samad is still in college and protected for now by his DACA status. He is a passionate and outspoken advocate for his mother and increasingly for all those threatened because of their undocumented status.
He says if his mother is deported he will go to Pakistan with her because her life could well depend on it. But as a young man who has grown up in the United States, it is certainly not the preferred outcome for himself or his mother.
As for this historic old church in Kalamazoo that has so kindly provided sanctuary for Saheeda, it is just the latest in a long history of such social justice actions. The church was actually the last stop on the Underground Railroad so many years ago. Oh, how little has changed.
