Update, Jan. 15, 2026: Kamel Maklad was released from Eloy Detention Center on Dec. 9, after a judge granted his Habeas Corpus petition. Maklad is now living in Georgia with a cousin.

A Syrian man remains locked up at an immigration detention center in Eloy, Arizona, almost 10 months after a judge granted him deportation relief. 

Kamel Maklad had spent 14 months in detention before a federal immigration judge in November 2024 granted him “withholding of removal,” meaning he cannot be deported to Syria because he would likely be persecuted. In previous years, migrants who were granted withholding of removal were typically released from detention and waited in limbo on the outside for years, often receiving a work permit, immigration lawyers told Prism. But the current administration is changing course and detaining people even after they have won their case. 

“Do I stay here my whole life?” Maklad asked in Spanish, during a phone call with Prism in July. “In Syria, at least I know I’m either dead or alive. But here, what am I doing?” 

Maklad, 38, left Syria in 2011 as the civil war there began and lived for 10 years with legal status in Venezuela, where the U.S. is now threatening to deport him. In late August of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents told him that Venezuela had agreed to take him back and that if he didn’t accept the U.S. government’s proposal to leave, they would keep him in the Eloy detention center, he said. 

Meanwhile, his application for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), filed in May 2024, is still pending. He said he doubts it will be granted.

“It’s not easy to make a decision in this situation,” Maklad told Prism. “I lost my health, I lost two years of my life … and for them, it’s like nothing happened.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a series of questions in time for publication about Maklad’s case or the department’s plans for withholding of removal cases. 

An “anomaly” at any other time

Luis Campos, an immigration lawyer of more than 30 years who does not have any ties to Maklad’s case, said the case sounds very similar to that of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The man from El Salvador was granted withholding of removal in 2019 and lived in Maryland for years before being detained by ICE in March. Sparking outrage across the country, Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador before being brought back to the U.S. three months later. He is now being held at an immigration detention center in Virginia.   

Campos said that in past years, he would have considered a case like this to be likely an “anomaly.” 

“In today’s times, given the current circumstances and state of affairs, I think we’re going to be seeing an increase of persons detained in similar circumstances because it reflects a broader trend,” Campos said. “That broader trend is to hold people until they capitulate and ultimately sign papers for them to be removed abroad.” 

Legal battles

Maklad’s lawyer, Pattilyn Bermudez Solano, told Prism that she was drawn to his case after seeing that he won relief but was still detained. Bermudez Solano is helping Maklad reach out to Kuwait and other countries where he would prefer to be deported, to see if they’ll accept him. She is also representing him with his pending TPS application. 

“I am concerned that ICE might want to send him to a country where he could be at risk or tortured,” Bermudez Solano said. 

She mentioned a case earlier this year in which one of her clients suddenly stopped appearing in the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. ICE got the man’s case dismissed and processed him for expedited removal. They deported him to Mexico, near the Guatemalan border. She didn’t find out until days later, when he borrowed a stranger’s cellphone to call his partner, who informed Bermudez Solano, she said. 

Campos said the U.S. is allowed to deport people to third countries, but immigrants can contest that order.

In deciding to keep Maklad detained, ICE officials need to provide a custody review and consideration of release 90 days into his detention with a reasonable explanation as to why they consider him a flight risk or a danger to society, Bermudez Solano said. 

For a custody review, the ICE field office director considers the nature and seriousness of the person’s criminal convictions, other criminal history, and prior immigration violations, among other factors. September 2023 was the only time Maklad entered the U.S. illegally; he did not make any other attempts. He has no criminal history. 

On March 25, 2025, ICE sent Maklad a letter, which he shared with Prism, saying that he poses “a danger to the community, to the safety of other persons, or to property.”

“Your illegal entry into the United States shows a disregard to laws and indicates that you are a flight risk,” ICE wrote as an additional reason for keeping him detained.  

Stuck in prison, Maklad said he has lost 30 pounds in the last year. About 11 months ago, he started vomiting after every meal, sometimes throwing up blood along with his food, medical records viewed by Prism show. Maklad said that doctors have suggested stress might be a factor, after test results showed nothing wrong with his esophagus. He now eats in his room, away from the rest of the detainees, to spare them the image of his body rejecting food, he said. 

Prism interviewed Maklad over a series of phone calls this summer and visited him in detention twice. Maklad sat in a visitation room behind a table with a small wooden divider, wearing a red, scrub-like outfit. His frame was thin. The top of his hair was darker and a couple of inches long, the sides a graying fade, matching his graying, trimmed beard. Around him, other men sat at their own tables, waiting to see their children, mothers, wives, sisters, or fathers.

Maklad talked fast, sounding desperate, frustrated, angry, and at times hopeless. He talked about his immigration case, his backstory, and his experiences in the detention center, including the injustices he and the other detainees experience daily.

I don’t know where I am, where I’m going, or what my end is. I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

Kamel Maklad, detained at Eloy Immigration Detention Center

Maklad told Prism that he left Syria because he was afraid of becoming a prisoner there, but now he’s a prisoner in the U.S. 

“I don’t know where I am, where I’m going, or what my end is,” he said in Spanish. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for.”

Making the journey north

After Maklad first left Syria, he moved to Venezuela, where he found work and learned Spanish.

He visited Syria in 2018, after rebels burned down his and his family members’ homes and torched his car.

Maklad returned to Venezuela in early 2019 and found work again, but his visa expired in 2022. He applied to renew it, but the political crisis in Venezuela stalled the immigration process, he said. After police learned that he did not have legal status, they would threaten him often and expect bribes, he said. 

Tired of the threats, Maklad started his journey north. He entered the U.S. in September 2023 at the Mexico-U.S. border in Arizona with a group of migrants—including some of his cousins—and led by migrant smugglers, he said. 

After each migrant stepped through a widened part of the wrought iron border fence, they walked a short distance to a road where they were met by Border Patrol agents. Maklad turned himself in. 

He’s been detained in the Eloy Immigration Detention Center, owned by CoreCivic, since then. His cousins went through the same process he did, but they won their cases sooner and have since been released from detention, Maklad said. 

In January 2024, Maklad filed for asylum and withholding of removal. In early April, a judge denied his requests, but Maklad appealed that decision and was granted a new hearing. 

In court, Maklad provided proof that he is wanted by Syrian police for not reporting for military service in 2020. 

The court found that Maklad “established that his political opinion will be ‘a reason’ the Syrian government will target him for persecution.” 

On Nov. 11, 2024, Judge William Mabry III granted Maklad’s request for withholding of removal and for protection under the Convention Against Torture. The standard of proof for withholding of removal is set higher than the standard for asylum.

“No respect for human rights” 

Maklad said he is worried about what awaits him in Venezuela if he’s deported there. He’s worried he’ll struggle to find work and a place to live, as well as the money he would need to get a visa, an ID, and a work permit. He said he expects to be threatened and harassed like he was before deciding to come to the U.S.

He couldn’t return to Syria, his home country, because of ongoing threats to his safety. He left Venezuela due to police harassment. In the U.S., he hoped for peace in “a land of law.”

“But really, I was surprised, shocked,” Maklad said. “Here, there is no justice, no legality, no respect for human rights.”

UPDATE 9/22/25: On Sept. 19, Maklad said he was flown from Texas to Venezuela, where immigration agents at the airport told him Venezuela wasn’t expecting him and hadn’t agreed to accept him. He was flown back to the U.S. and is being detained in El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas. He still has no answers about how long he’ll be detained or what is going to happen to him after Venezuela denied him. 

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor