Iemad Saifo walked into the ICE office in Mount Laurel at 7:30 in the morning on July 31 expecting a routine check-in. Four hours later, the 65-year-old owner of Zena's American-Mediterranean Cuisine in Collingswood was in federal custody, and he has remained there since, held at Delaney Hall, the sprawling immigration detention facility in Newark. His daughter, Zena Saifo, says the family is now bracing for what comes next as her father awaits a bail hearing scheduled for Friday.
The arrest, first reported by WHYY, has galvanized the small South Jersey borough where Saifo has run his restaurant since 2011, naming it after his eldest daughter. Zena Saifo told the outlet her family is anxious about its future amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, and said she believes three detainees may have died at Delaney Hall because of medical emergencies. Saifo himself has third-stage kidney disease and spasmodic dysphonia, a condition that causes involuntary muscle spasms of the voice box, according to the same report.
A Family Divided by Immigration Status
Saifo's family came to New Jersey from Syria on a B-1/B-2 visa in 2002, and he has four children, all of whom, along with his wife, hold legal status or U.S. citizenship, according to a fundraising campaign organized on his behalf. Zena Saifo, now 27, said her mother and four younger brothers all have legal status, leaving her father as the only member of the household facing deportation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations' New Jersey chapter has called for Saifo's immediate release, noting he is the sole primary caregiver for his 11-year-old autistic son and has an immigration court hearing scheduled for December.
Court records reviewed by WHYY show a long and winding legal history. An immigration judge ordered Saifo removed in September 2010, but that same judge reopened his case in January 2011, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson cited in the report. A separate immigration judge administratively closed his removal case in February 2023, and the first part of his application for legal status, pursued through his daughter's brother, was granted recently. Saifo has pursued every legal avenue available to him to remain in the country, per the reporting.
Federal Officials Cite Past Conviction
Federal immigration authorities have defended the detention by pointing to Saifo's record, which includes prior arrests for theft by deception and identity-related offenses along with a 2018 witness tampering conviction, according to Patch. WHYY's reporting, citing a Homeland Security spokesperson and online court records, states Saifo pleaded guilty to the charge in 2019 and was sentenced to five years' probation, ordered to pay a fine and restitution, and required to complete 100 hours of community service. The spokesperson also said Saifo refused to leave the country in May 2002 when his visa expired.
ICE says detainees at Delaney Hall have received appropriate medical care, and Patch reports the agency is also offering undocumented immigrants $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport voluntarily through the CBP Home app. The facility itself has drawn scrutiny well beyond Saifo's case. Delaney Hall reopened in May 2025 after GEO Group secured a 15-year, $1 billion contract with ICE to provide 1,000 detention beds, making it the largest federal immigration detention facility on the East Coast, according to GEO Group.
Deaths and Legal Fights Shadow Delaney Hall
The site has been the location of protests over facility conditions and detainee treatment, per WHYY's reporting. At least two detainees have died there since the reopening, Jean Wilson Brutus in December 2025 and Edwin Jovanny Lopez Cornejo in August, prompting hunger strikes and demonstrations, according to the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. Nationwide, more than 50 people have died in ICE custody since President Trump took office, per the WHYY report, and federal tracking data cited by Newsweek shows nationwide ICE detentions reached roughly 60,000 people by mid-2026, with nearly 75 percent of those detained carrying no criminal convictions.
The City of Newark sued GEO Group in April 2025, alleging the operator reopened Delaney Hall without municipal permits and blocked local building and health officials from conducting safety inspections. A federal judge sent both parties into mediation in May, Newsweek reported. Separately, a federal appeals court struck down New Jersey's state law banning private immigration detention centers, ruling that federal immigration enforcement preempts state prohibitions, according to the American Friends Service Committee — a decision that keeps facilities like Delaney Hall operating despite the state's earlier legislative effort to close them.
Collingswood Neighbors Mobilize
Back in Collingswood, the response has been immediate and personal. Cooper River Indivisible posted heart-shaped support notes on the windows of Zena's restaurant, and the community organized both a fundraiser and a letter-writing campaign on the family's behalf, per WHYY's reporting. Collingswood Mayor Daniela Solano-Ward said the borough is collecting notarized statements to submit for the family, and Deputy Mayor Dr. Amy Henderson Riley joined residents at the restaurant to write personal character references for the Department of Homeland Security, part of an effort documented on Facebook that has raised over $20,000 for legal defense fees.
For now, the family's fate rests on Friday's bail hearing and the December immigration court date still months away. Saifo's children and wife continue to run Zena's while the case winds through the courts, hoping the community support translates into his release to await proceedings at home rather than behind the walls of Delaney Hall.
