A Youngstown businessman, who rallied community support after receiving a temporary stay from deportation, will be deported. 

In a response to inquiries made by 21 News, immigration officials at ICE issued the following statement: 

“Over the last decade, Mr. Othman’s immigration case has undergone exhaustive judicial review at multiple levels of the nation’s courts, including before the immigration courts, federal appeals courts and U.S. district court.

In each review, the courts have uniformly held that Mr. Othman does not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S. Mr. Othman will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States.”

But Amer "Al Adi" Othman's long-time attorney David Leopold says they're claiming some marriage that he was in, his first marriage in the 1980's was fraudulent.  But I will tell you no judge ever, anywhere has ever found in open court that he did anything wrong."

"Now it's one thing if they want him to leave but today what we're witnessing is the brazen humiliation, degradation, dehumanizing of a man who is an American in every way but on a piece of paper," Attorney Leopold said.

Othman's wife of 30 years Fidaa Musleh cried as she told 21 News she was only allowed to talk to him through glass after he was handcuffed and taken into custody.  Her husband told her to take care of their four girls.

"We walk in the officer he says, "Let's get to the point, we're taking you into custody.  We were so surprised.  We said why?  Why would you trick us to say he has a stay, get us here, just to put him behind bars?  What's the reason behind it?" Musleh asked."

The Vice Chairwoman of the Mahoning County Republican Party Tracey Winbush tells 21 News that she has been friends with Amer "Al Adi" Othman, the owner of the Downtown Circle for 20 years and couldn't believe it when he was detained without any explanation Tuesday morning.

The Vice Chairwoman told 21 News that ICE officials took Adi, his attorney, and his wife into a room, where they handcuffed Adi and took him into custody. 

Early Tuesday morning the Vice Chairwoman tweeted out that she was "appalled" by the process. 

Speaking from Cleveland, Winbush said that whole process was horrific and embarrassing.

"As a conservative right is right and wrong is wrong and if you're illegal and you have to be deported that's one thing but there should be processes and procedures to make sure people have human rights, even if they don't have constitutional rights.  And to dehumanize a person the way they did Al today I would not have believed it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.  America is better than this, at least I thought we were," Winbush said.

U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan (D-13th District) from Howland tells 21 News, "It just does seem like they're going out of their way to try and humiliate him.  There are violent, undocumented people in our society today that we are not going after, because we are going after a 35 year business person who is married to a U.S. citizen with four U.S. kids, who is the greatest guy you ever want to meet in your life, does that make any sense?  Taxpayers should be outraged at what's happening here, and the lack of humanity."

The Congressman says he is continuing to try and make calls and get people's attention in the administration and at the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the Judiciary Community that handles the private bill that he sponsored and hopefully try to throw in another hail Mary pass, but Ryan says clearly for them to take Amer "Al Adi" Othman into custody is them playing games to try and embarass him and try to humiliate him.

Speaking to 21 News last week, Adi said that he was "optimistic" about the meeting with ICE officials. 

Adi's family and friends held a news conference Tuesday night.

One family friends said he felt Adi was being punished for making his story public, "This is a punishment to him. That's why he is in custody because he raised his voice. These guys do not want anybody to speak," said Ike Omran.

"Our President, you call these countries a s**thole county, well today you just made Youngstown, Ohio a s**thole city by taking this man away from his family, from his community, people who depend on him, okay and its wrong," said Supporter Cheryl Kelly.

Among the crowd of supporters was a woman who said she's work for Adi for more than 20 years and plans to go to Jordan to stand with him.

"When you lose good people like this, you lose jobs, you lose everything - you lose everything. He's going to be well missed," said Ithica Stewart-Brown. 

Adi was just 19-years-old when he moved to the United States from Jordan.  In 1979 he married his first wife and settled down in San Diego after receiving his green card

After their divorce, Adi moved to Youngstown where he then met his second wife.

After spending several years out of the country with his wife, Adi had his green card confiscated upon returning.

Adi's citizenship was then denied because of "a claim that the marriage from 1979 was fraudulent."

Congressman Tim Ryan worked trying to push a private bill for years to keep Adi off the deportation list.

After working with Adi's lawyers and the House Judiciary Committee, they were able to grant Al Adi a stay. 

The Youngstown businessman is now being held at the Geauga County Jail according to his attorney and is being held on what's called Administrative Detention.  It's expected he will be deported to Jordan in the next 180 days.

This is a developing story. Check back to wfmj.com for updates. 
 

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