By Nicquel Terry Ellis, CNN
(CNN) — Wael Tarabishi’s family had hoped his father and primary caretaker could be present as they say their final goodbyes to the 30-year-old at his funeral on Thursday.
But Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials denied the family’s request to temporarily release his father, Maher Tarabishi, for the service in Joshua, Texas, the family’s attorney said in a statement.
Now the family is preparing to bury Wael, who died last Friday, after spending his life suffering from a serious and rare inherited disorder called Pompe disease that leads to severe muscle weakness and heart problems, without Maher.
“We are profoundly disappointed with ICE’s decision to deny Maher Tarabishi the opportunity to say his final goodbye to his beloved son, Wael,” Attorney Ali Elhorr said in a statement Tuesday. “Today’s decision to keep him from saying goodbye is a reflection of the tragic lack of humanity by those in charge.”
In a separate statement, family members said preventing Maher from burying his son “would only deepen the wounds left by the pain of these past few months.”
ICE’s decision came three months after Maher was detained during a routine immigration check-in in Dallas. Since then, his family has held a news conference and publicly pleaded for federal immigration officials to temporarily release him from the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas.
At first, they hoped Maher could be released to provide the 24-hour specialized care for Wael that only he was trained to do. But in Wael’s last days, they were holding hope Maher could at least say goodbye to his son in person.
On Tuesday, a day before Wael’s funeral was originally planned, Elhorr said he had discussed the funeral’s logistics and ICE’s conditions to allow Maher’s attendance with immigration officials “who had shown the willingness to facilitate Maher’s supervised release,” but ultimately, declined to do so.
ICE detention standards allow for detainees to “maintain ties with their families through emergency staff-escorted trips into the community to visit critically ill members of the immediate family or to attend their funerals,” according to its website.
CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment about the decision.
His health declined without his father’s care
Shahd Arnaout, Wael’s sister-in-law, told CNN the family struggled to care for Wael with his father in ICE custody.
Maher was the one who bathed Wael, changed his clothing, and helped administer food and medication through a tube, Arnaout said.
“He was the one who knew, when his fever went up, what to give him right away,” Arnaout told CNN. “We had to ask multiple doctors to come and see what (medicines) to give Wael because Maher was not there to react quickly.”
At a December news conference, a statement from Wael was read aloud in which he described the relationship with his father.
“He’s the one who keeps me alive when I’m at my weakest,” Wael said in the statement, CNN affiliate WFAA reported. “Without him, I am nothing. Without him, I cannot survive.”
In the weeks following Maher’s detention, Arnaout said Wael’s health significantly declined as he developed life-threatening health complications.
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