Here's What Happened to One Family After ICE Took Dad
By Kenny Wassus
When ICE, as part of a wider crackdown on immigration by the new administration, tried to deport Indra Sihotang, he knew he couldnt board the plane to leave. With a wife and four U.S.-born sons and all of them depending on him as their financial provider he refused.
After he defied ICE, Sihotang was kicked and beaten, resulting in injuries, his wife Risma Fadersair says, resulted in hospitalization.
A Christian and a welder with a clean record, never having been arrested or charged with a crime in the United States, Indra Sihotang has been in the U.S. since 2003, when he entered on a visitors visa. In 2005, he filed for asylum (in his home country, Indonesia, Christians are persecuted for their beliefs, in a predominantly Muslim country); in 2016, his application was denied. Since then, Sihotang had remained in the U.S., on an order of supervision, until September 7, 2017, when he was detained during a routine check-in.
Now with no income and four boys aged 8, 9, 5, and 3 one of whom has Down syndrome that requires intense therapy, the Sihotang family is in crisis. This short is a look at how their life has been upturned since ICE took their dad, and the lengths they go to see him.
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https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/heres-what-happened-to-one-family-after-ice-took-dad.html