Northwest Press 04/17/19

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NORTHWEST PRESS Your Community Press newspaper serving Colerain Township, Green Township, Sharonville, Springdale, Wyoming and other Northwest Cincinnati neighborhoods

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2019 ❚ BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS ❚ PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK

Mauritanian immigrant now free, ‘lost everything’

Odds and ends to be sold at parks auction Sarah Brookbank Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK

Mohamed Diaby and his wife, Sherkia Diaby, stand inside their current residence on March 30 in Cottage Hill. ICE detained Mohamed Diaby for 13 months. Mohamed, a Mauritanian immigrant, and Sherkia, his wife, lost their businesses and apartment and had to move in with her mother in College Hill. “I lost everything and have to start over again,” he said. ALBERT CESARE / ENQUIRER

Man rebuilds life in Ohio after ICE detained him for a year Mark Curnutte

Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK

Mohamed and Sherkia Diaby have lost much of what they built together in 11 years of marriage. After a year and a week in federal immigration custody, Mohamed Diaby was released March 20 and is now free. Yet has a stack of legal bills to pay. He lost the job he’d held for two years in a mattress factory because he lost his work permit. He also lost his driver’s license and the apartment he shared with his wife in Westwood. “I lost everything and have to start over again,” he said while sitting in the cramped living room of his mother-inlaw’s house in College Hill. Diaby and his wife are living there until they can get re-established. They even sent their 10-year-old daughter, Issa, a U.S. citizen, to live with Mohamed’s sister in the Bronx. There, she is learning Mauritanian culture and several languages, including Swahili and Arabic. Despite the many losses, the challenge of starting over in the United States, he said, is a much better option than the alternative of being deported to his native Mauritania. What he lost here can be regained and rebuilt. Not so in his homeland in northwest Africa. “As soon as you get to Africa, you are either a slave or a refugee,” said Diaby, who isn’t certain of his age but whose documents show he’s 51. Diaby belongs to a class of stateless

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Despite the many losses, the challenge of starting over in the United States, he said, is a much better option than the alternative of being deported to his native Mauritania. What he lost here can be regained and rebuilt. Not so in his homeland in northwest Africa. “As soon as you get to Africa, you are either a slave or a refugee,” said Diaby, who isn’t certain of his age but whose documents show he’s 51. Afro-Mauritanians that human rights groups and the CIA say are enslaved in Mauritania by the lighter-skinned Arab-Maghreb ruling class. Yet U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement offi cials haven’t been deterred from attempting to send a growing number of Mauritanians back, despite the objections of human rights activists and groups. The agency deported 98 Mauritanians in the year ending in October 2018. ICE sent back just eight in the previous year. Dozens more, including Amadou Sow, of Lockland, remain in ICE custody. The Mauritanian government is now refusing to grant the most basic travel document, which would allow a Mauritanian who’s being deported to enter the country. In Diaby’s case, that’s what the government did through its embassy in Washington, D.C. In a letter dated Dec. 4, 2018, to ICE offi cials, the Mauritanian counselor in

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charge of consular aff airs wrote: “It appeared throughout the interviews and from the documents provided that the main persons concerned are all Senegalese or Gambian nationals who fraudulently obtained Mauritanian documents to access American territory to fi le unfounded asylum claims.” Not so, said Diaby. “I am Mauritanian.” The failure to receive a travel document from the Mauritanian government led ICE offi cials to attempt to deport Diaby to one of several other West African nations, said one of his lawyers, Charleston Wang. “Luckily, currently, Mauritania is refusing to take black Mauritanians, and this is in line with the policy of that government to make Mauritania more white,” Wang said. He fi led for habeas corpus, requirSee IMMIGRANT, Page 3A

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Great Parks of Hamilton County is hosting its annual auction later this month and the items up for sale range from useful to downright weird. Up for grabs are some “worn and dusty” animatronic barn animals, Halloween decorations, trucks and power tools and picnic tables. The barn animals appear to be a set, featuring a pair of mice, two large raccoons, a duck, car, and a pig with a bandana and a jug. The animals were originally inside the playbarn at Parky’s Farm in Winton Woods, a spokeswoman with Great Parks said. Last year, a pioneer man was sold at the auction. The auction will take place on April 27 at the Winton Woods Maintenance Complex. So what else is for sale? ❚ Coff ee makers ❚ A deposit door with bulletproof glass ❚ A GE oven and microwave ❚ Kayaks, jon boats and pedal boats ❚ A waving skeleton light sculpture ❚ Infl atable obstacle course ❚ 99 folding chairs ❚ An assortment of iPads ❚ A men’s wedding band ❚ A pinkbubble max bike, but the handlebars “appear to be on backward” ❚ 22 low-quality unused bike helmets The auction is free and open for the public to attend. Items may be purchased with cash, check or credit card. Viewing begins at 8 a.m. and bidding begins at 9 a.m. on April 27. The Winton Woods Maintenance Complex is located on Golfview Drive between Springdale Road and Mill Road in Winton Woods. For more information visit Great Parks of Hamilton County online at greatparks.org.

Kayaks, jon boats and pedal boats are among several items that will be sold at Great Parks of Hamilton County’s annual auction on April 27. AMANDA ROSSMANN/ENQUIRER FILE

Vol. 2 No. 13 © 2019 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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