A heartfelt homecoming | Scene Through the Lens

“This is like my home,” Emine Emanet said when returning to Jersey Kebab the day after she was released from an immigrant detention center in Elizabeth, N.J.

It was two weeks after she and her husband Celal Emanet were taken away in handcuffs when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived at their Haddon Township restaurant. Celal was fitted with an electronic ankle monitor and released, but Emine remained in ICE custody.

I first photographed the story from the first day neighbors saw the restaurant closed and learned of the couple’s arrest. The case roused outrage in their neighborhood, where the Turkish immigrant owners of the corner eatery regularly provided free meals to the hungry. A locally organized GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $327,000 for the family’s legal defense, living expenses, and lost income.

Below is a photo gallery, a chronology of events. There were press conferences and protests, and letter writing campaigns. I covered those, and then spent two days in the parking lot of New Jersey’s only immigrant detention center, where a judge ruled the wife and mother could be can be released from custody on $7,500 bond.

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: