Category: New Jersey News

The son of the Jersey Kebab restaurant owners whose ICE arrests sparked wide condemnation last year now confronts his own battle to stay in the United States.

Muhammed Emanet, 26, said he is trying to be upbeat as he faces the prospect of being separated from his wife and two sons, ages 4 and 1, all American citizens.

“I try not to dwell on what I can’t control,” said Emanet, who with his parents operates the popular South Jersey eatery in Collingswood. “I still have a restaurant to run, employees that depend on me, customers, family. I have no other choice but to be positive.”

Still, his situation feels disorienting, as what seemed to be settled is now newly unsettled.

In spring the Department of Homeland Security ended its effort to deport Emanet, which seemed to clear the path for him to stay in the U.S. But this month, a different federal immigration agency told him it plans to deny his request for legal permanent residency, what is known as a green card.

That intended denial carries a 30-day window for Emanet, who came here from Turkey as a boy, to present new or additional evidence to try to change the minds of officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The government also told him that under a new Trump administration policy, he and other immigrants who are pursuing green cards while living in the U.S. must leave the country and apply from their home nations. Emanet hasn’t been in Turkey since he was 12.

It’s unclear what will happen when the 30-day deadline expires around July 2.

A little more than a year ago, on Feb. 25, 2025, the small Mediterranean restaurant on Haddon Avenue generated national headlines. Immigration advocates and local leaders railed against what they saw as government injustice, after ICE agents arrested owners Celal Emanet and his wife, Emine.

Celal Emanet was released after being fitted with an electronic ankle monitor ― later removed ― while his wife was held at an ICE detention center in Elizabeth. She was released on bond after two weeks and a day.

Their arrests angered a South Jersey community that has long known the couple as caring people who offer free food to the hungry. A GoFundMe campaign to pay family costs and expenses raised $327,000, drawing donations from across the country and beyond, including from Ireland, Germany, and England.

Now, a community effort to help Muhammed Emanet is driving a new letter-writing campaign, with person after person attesting to his good character and his importance to his neighbors. Hundreds of letters have been signed and gathered to be presented on his behalf, said Lori Leonard, who organized the GoFundMe campaign last year.

“People are rallying behind Muhammed,” she said.

State Assemblyman Bill Moen, a Democrat who represents parts of Camden and Gloucester Counties, signed a letter of support. He said on social media that Emanet “has touched the lives of many people throughout South Jersey” as a husband, father, neighbor, friend, and businessperson.

“While I don’t make immigration decisions,” Moen said, “I do believe decision-makers should understand the character of the people whose lives are affected by those decisions.”

U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, a South Jersey Democrat, met with the family soon after Emine Emanet was released from ICE detention, and as her son’s situation emerged this month he stressed in a statement that the family had been long “rooted in our community.”

In response to questions on Muhammed Emanet’s situation, USCIS said it does not comment on individual immigration cases.

Being removed to Turkey would likely separate Emanet from his wife and children for years. It also could subject him to reprisals from the Turkish regime, where repressive human-rights conditions under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has driven an exodus.

Marriage to a U.S. citizen by someone who legally entered the country ― as Emanet did ― has long been a reliable route to an adjustment of status and acquisition of a green card.

But the Trump policy change announced in May said adjustment should be an “extraordinary” relief, one that depends on government discretion, not merely on having a valid marriage and submitting the proper forms. Failing to depart the U.S. under the policy can by itself be treated as a negative factor in the government’s decision-making.

Emanet’s immigration lawyer, Joseph Best, said that change in administration policy does not alter the law around eligibility for green cards.

“If USCIS follows the law,” Best said, “he will attain his lawful permanent resident status just as Congress intended. It is not some fluke or exceptional ‘ask’ here.”

Discretionary factors, he said, all favor Emanet, who was brought legally to the U.S. as a child, was admitted under a valid visa, and has no criminal history. He is loved in his community, and a key person in a successful family business that is known for helping others, Best said.

Celal and Emine Emanet came legally to the United States with two young children in 2008, entering under a religious visa that allowed the father to work at a New Jersey Islamic center.

They said that they sought green cards before that visa expired in 2013, but that the application has been in government limbo for years.

In 2021, they founded Jersey Kebab in Haddon Township, and the restaurant recently moved west on Haddon Avenue to a new location in Collingswood.

The couple’s immigration cases continue. Celal Emanet’s next hearing is scheduled for December, while his wife is to appear in April 2027.

The family stands among roughly 386,000 Turkish immigrants and people of Turkish ancestry who live in the United States, according to Inquirer computations of U.S. Census figures. That includes about 15,000 in Philadelphia and surrounding suburban Pennsylvania and New Jersey counties.

Turkey is a longtime U.S. ally, a rectangular land bridge between Europe and Asia that is surrounded by sea on three sides. It is a Muslim nation, a country of tea drinkers, the place where Julius Caesar is said to have immortally proclaimed “Veni, vidi, vici” ― “I came, I saw, I conquered” ― after a decisive battle victory near what is now the modern town of Zile.

Today, people are leaving the country amid economic instability and political purges, with many trying to get to the United States.

U.S. government apprehensions of Turkish nationals at the Mexican and Canadian borders surged from 67 in 2020 to more than 15,000 in 2022 and another 15,000-plus in 2023, dropping to 10,500 in 2024. Figures for 2025 were not immediately available.

President Donald Trump is expected to be in Turkey next month to attend the NATO summit in Ankara.

During Trump’s second term, USCIS has repeatedly paused the processing of applications for all types of immigration benefits, including those for legal permanent residency.

Last month, the administration announced it would require foreigners who are living in the U.S. and want to obtain green cards to leave the country to do so. The administration said they must now apply in their homelands, a departure from longstanding policy that has sowed confusion and concern.

For decades, foreign nationals who meet requirements have been able to complete the green-card process in the United States, including those married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and asylum seekers.

USCIS spokesperson Zach Kahler said in a statement that entering the U.S. on a visa should not be a first step toward obtaining a green card, that tourists and temporary workers are permitted to come here for limited times.

“Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over,” he said.

Making people leave the country to apply for green cards “reduces the need to find and remove those who decide to slip into the shadows and remain in the U.S. illegally,” he said.

The administration instructed immigration officers to consider violations of immigration laws, including overstaying a visa, as negative factors in their decision-making.

Since the uproar, though, USCIS has seemed to walk back the policy, saying it would be implemented on a case-by-case basis. That could mean that some immigrants will be able to stay in the U.S. while they seek green cards.

Emanet said his immigration case started in 2020, when two plainclothes ICE officers arrived at the family home and said he was in the country illegally.

In spring, his attorney persuaded an immigration court in Newark to terminate Emanet’s court case ― with no opposition from the DHS Office of the Principal Legal Adviser, the ICE prosecutors. That termination seemed to clear the way for Emanet to adjust his status.

Instead, on June 3 he received a Notice of Intent to Deny from federal immigration officials, indicating they plan to reject his application to adjust his status. He is not sure what will happen when the 30-day deadline for new information expires.

“I have children here who need my support ― American citizens who depend on me,” Emanet said. “I thought I was that one, that I did everything exactly how I was supposed to, that I should receive my green card. … It feels like a punch in the gut.”