Owner of Zena’s American Mediterranean Cuisine in Collingswood released on bond from ICE detention at Delaney Hall

Iemad Saifo, a 65-year-old father of four and owner of Zena’s American Mediterranean Cuisine in Collingswood will return home after spending two weeks in ICE detention at Delaney Hall.

Iemad Saifo emigrated to the U.S. from Syria in 2002 on a business visa and later sought asylum following the outbreak of his home nation’s civil war. He was detained at a routine ICE check-in on July 31 despite the fact that he is the primary caretaker of an autistic 12-year-old son. Iemad Saifo also has a rare medical condition called spasmodic dysphonia that makes it hard for him to speak as well as chronic kidney disease.

Dozens of Collingswood area community members wrote letters and signed a petition urging the court to keep him in South Jersey with his family.

As President Donald Trump pushes his mass deportation agenda, routine check-ins have become increasingly risky for immigrants. Advocates say many of those who have been arrested at ICE check-ins were just following government protocols.

Last week, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced her office was investigating Delaney Hall after multiple detainees died there during the past year, raising concerns about the facility’s conditions and medical negligence. The privately operated detention center under contract with ICE, has been the scene of fierce protests and political fights between the Trump administration and Democrats since its May 2025 reopening.

ICE said in a statement that Iemad Saifo was arrested both because he doesn’t have permanent status and because of a 2018 case in which he was indicted and found guilty of witness tampering and sentenced to five years probation.

“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, ICE is targeting the worst of the worst,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote. “Nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S.”

Iemad Saifo’s release was likely, in part, thanks to 150 notarized letters from community members testifying to his character, said one of his attorneys Fiona Powell.

“This was an outpouring of community support like I’ve never seen before,” she said.

Those letters were authored last weekend during an event that friends, family and community organizers hosted at his restaurant. Many in the South Jersey area know Saifo from both his restaurant, which opened in 2011, and the near decade before when he worked at a local 7/11, said his 27-year-old daughter Zena Saifo, for whom the restaurant is named. She, one of her brothers and mother were granted asylum following the war, Zena Saifo said, but her father never heard back from the Department of Homeland Security so he applied for permanent residency through her younger brother who was born in the United States.

“He’s always willing to help people, to give, so I think because of all of this people are really enraged and disgusted by what’s happening and doing everything they can to support him,” Zena Saifo said.

Zena Saifo is still reeling from the day of his detention, she said, when she, her brother and lawyers arrived at the Mount Laurel ICE office for the check-in at around 7:30 a.m. and were made to wait until past noon. Saifo’s lawyer notified her they’d be detaining her father. She tearfully pleaded with the ICE officer to let her say goodbye to him but was denied, she said.

“The main thoughts circulating through my mind were, ‘Am I going to be able to see my father again? Is he going to be reunited with my family? Was this the last time I saw my father,’” Zena Saifo said. “It was just really, really devastating.”

In the period since Iemad Saifo’s detention, two of his sons have taken over the restaurant. His wife has stayed at home and taken care of the youngest. He turned 12 last weekend without his father present.

Zena Saifo said her father’s two requests of her in his absence were to water the family fig tree and host a big celebration for her brother’s birthday.

On Friday morning, the family was en route to pay the $7,500 bond and pick Iemad Saifo up from Delaney Hall, Powell said.

The 2018 charge was brought up during the bond review, Powell said, but “in the end the judge was able to see that he’s an older man with a family who needs him and strong community ties and that he deserves to be home with his family,” she said.

Going forward, his legal team will do all it can to secure residency for Iemad Saifo.

In the interim, immigrants are always at risk of detention regardless of their circumstances, Powell said, but, legally, the government would need to show something about his situation has changed in order to detain him again.

“It could take potentially months or years more in order to get him permanent status here but we will continue doing everything we can to keep him here,” Powell said.