Please grant my father’s application for a pardon to protect him from the reach of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and help him stay in the U.S. with us, his family.
My father was brought to the U.S. lawfully as a child by my grandmother, who wanted a better life for her family. In 1997, when I was three, my father went to prison. He was just 19 when he shot and tragically took the life of another young man. In 2011, while my father was in prison, my brother (my father’s youngest son) was killed in an act of violence, deepening my father’s understanding of the traumatic impact he had on his victim’s family and gun violence has on our community, more generally.
My father spent 25 years in prison atoning for the harm he caused (
http://www.voicesfromwithin.org/tyrone-abraham.html). After much soul searching, he turned his life around and committed to bettering himself (he earned Bachelor and Master’s degrees) and helping others. He helped at-risk youth understand the impact of gun violence and develop strategies for non-violent conflict resolution. He educated his peers about HIV/AIDS and making healthy lifestyle decisions. He led his prison’s United Asian American Organization as President when no one else stepped up to ensure its representation.
For all his work, my father earned the respect of peers, advocates, clergy members, academics, correctional officials, legislators, and, earlier this year, the state parole board, which granted him parole. However, my father was not freed on his release date, he was transferred to ICE custody and set for deportation to a country he has not seen since he was just 11 years old and where he has no family left. Time is running out; my father’s deportation is imminent as he sits in an ICE detention center.
My father served his time, every day of his sentence; and so did our entire family. I need my father, my aging grandmother needs her son, my mother needs her husband, my uncle needs his brother, my cousins need their uncle, and my father needs us. Keeping my father away from our family and sending him to a land he does not know and where he has no support system is cruel and defies logic.
Moreover, deporting my father would be a terrible loss for our community. New York taxpayers invested tremendous resources in my father’s transformation, and with the help of dedicated professionals, he succeeded remarkably. My father will continue his community work as a credible messenger after his incarceration. But without your pardon, we will all lose what we stand to benefit from my father’s return.
The precious life of my father’s victim can never be replaced. As someone who lost her own brother in much the same way, I understand. But I am so proud of the man my father has become. He has taught me the importance of humility, hard work, and community service. Please help my father continue to live and work here in the U.S. If you give him this opportunity, I know he can help heal our broken world.
Sincerely, Shayquana (daughter of Tyrone Abraham)
