Tareq Zakarneh, a Palestinian resident of Vancouver, Washington, has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention since May 2024.
Courtesy of Jason Ohmann
A Palestinian resident of Vancouver, Washington, remains in immigration detention in Arizona a day after he was set to be deported to the West Bank.
Tareq Zakarneh, 44, was scheduled to be on a flight to the West Bank via Tel Aviv, Israel on Sept. 9 — marking the U.S. government’s third attempt this year to remove him from the country. His case has sparked protests from advocates who argue Zakarneh’s life will be in danger if he’s sent to the occupied Palestinian territory amid escalating conflicts with Israeli settlers and military forces.
Zakarneh has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention for more than two years, primarily at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
As of Thursday afternoon, he was at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. When reached by phone there, Zakarneh told OPB that ICE agents beat him after he refused to board the flight on Wednesday.
“The officers put me on the floor, broke my teeth,” Zakarneh said, adding that his hand and shoulder started to swell and become numb afterward. “ They put me in a room, four hours restrained on the floor by myself. I can’t drink water. I can’t use the bathroom … it’s like torturing.”
He said the only medical attention he’d received was Ibuprofen.
ICE did not immediately respond to emailed questions about Zakarneh.
His case “demonstrates yet again how ICE’s default position is its violent disregard for human rights and legal processes in our country,” Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said in a statement to OPB Thursday.
“ICE must answer the many questions its abuses raise in this instance and act accordingly within the law and concern for this man’s safety,” Wyden said.
Before Zakarneh was detained in May 2024, he had been living in Portland and Vancouver for more than a decade. He moved from the West Bank to the U.S. on a student visa in 2013 to attend Portland State University, according to court records. Later that year, he married a U.S. citizen and obtained conditional permanent resident status. He divorced in 2017 and eventually lost his legal status after immigration courts found he did not enter the marriage in “good faith.”
Advocates with the group Portland for Palestine have for months been pressuring elected officials, including Wyden and Democratic Southwest Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, to intervene on Zakarneh’s behalf.
If the deportation moves forward, Zakarneh and his advocates say he is likely to face imprisonment or violence.
The United Nations has documented thousands of Israeli settler and military attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of last year.
ICE attorneys have argued in court that Zakarneh will not be placed in the custody of the Israeli government during his deportation because the U.S. has permission to transport him from Israel to the West Bank.
After OPB published a Sept. 4 story on Zakarneh’s planned deportation, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said ICE is not responsible for individuals no longer in its custody.
“This is common sense,” the statement said. “The location in which a receiving country’s government detains or transports an alien after removal from the United States is at that country’s discretion.”
Virginia-based lawyer Hassan Ahmad with The HMA Law Firm took up Zakarneh’s case this week.
Ahmad filed two motions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona on Tuesday in an effort to prevent Zakarneh’s deportation.
A judge denied his motion for a temporary restraining order on Wednesday. Ahmad was unavailable for comment by the time of publication.
