Aber Kawas, a Democratic Socialist who won her race for New York State Senate District 12 in Queens, has frequently cited her father’s deportation as a personal trauma stemming from a cruel immigration system that targets Muslim communities. However, court records indicate her father was deported following felony convictions for property fraud.
Kawas’s father, Abdelkareem Kawas, a Jordanian national, entered the U.S. in 1989 on a visitor visa and overstayed. He was convicted of making a false statement, a felony offense, in Virginia in 1995. A decade later, in 2006, he pleaded guilty to theft by deception in New Jersey for inflating property values and was sentenced to three years in state prison, serving just over a year.
His immigration case progressed through the courts for years. An immigration judge initially ordered his removal in 2004 after he failed to appear at a hearing. His subsequent appeals, including arguments of extreme hardship to his American family, were denied. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied his final petition for review in December 2008. Abdelkareem Kawas was deported to Jordan under the Bush administration.
On the campaign trail and on her campaign website, Kawas has described her father’s deportation as an act of government cruelty and a parallel to current immigration enforcement actions. She has recounted emotional visits to him in detention facilities and framed his removal as a key experience that shaped her activism. In an interview, she stated, “When I was in seventh grade, my dad was picked up by ICE; he was held in immigration detention for three years and eventually deported.” She has not publicly disclosed his criminal convictions in these accounts.
In a candidate questionnaire, Kawas acknowledged her father’s multiple incarcerations, stating, “As a child of someone who has been incarcerated multiple times, this is deeply personal to me as my visits to my father were a lifeline to maintain our family structure.”
Kawas won her election on Tuesday with 58.33% of the vote. Her campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the details of her father’s case.