While appearing before a federal judge in Michigan last week, Mohan Karki saw his 5-month-old daughter in person for the first time.
Karki was shackled and standing several feet away, according to his wife Tika Basnet, who was in the courtroom last Wednesday. Minutes later, his daughter began to wail and needed to exit the room, Basnet added.
When Karki will reunite with his daughter remains unknown.
"I was crying inside," Basnet said. "I don't want to cry in front of him because he will break down."
For more than eight months, Karki, 30, has been held in immigration custody amid removal proceedings that stemmed from felony charges of burglary, criminal trespassing and interference with government property, all from a single incident when he was a teenager.
Karki's attorneys have been fighting to stop his deportation to Bhutan — a small nation between India and China where Karki's family and others with Nepali ancestry were persecuted and driven out in the 1990s. Karki himself was born in a refugee camp in nearby Nepal.
Despite this, in court documents, the federal government asserts that Karki is a citizen of Bhutan. His attorneys strongly reject that claim, questioning how Karki could be a citizen of a country that he does not have a passport nor a birth certificate from.
They also warn that sending Karki to Bhutan would put him at serious risk of statelessness, pointing to reports that some deportees have been denied entry by Bhutanese authorities upon arrival and left stranded in South Asia.
On Monday, a federal judge in Michigan rejected Karki's petition to be released from detention — clearing the way for his deportation any day now.
Refugee advocates say Karki's case is a chilling example of President Trump's hardline stance on immigration. As his administration seeks to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, advocates argue that many immigrants are being removed from the U.S. despite their claims of imminent danger or statelessness.
"We're seeing a really troubling expansion of these scary tactics," said Aisa Villarosa, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, a national advocacy and legal aid group.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich, who has previously spoken out about Karki's situation, said she was especially troubled that he was deprived of seeing his child while his future remained precarious.
"No one deserves this cruelty. Mohan must be allowed to be reunited with his beautiful family," she said in a statement to NPR.
The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have not responded to requests for comment.
'He was so excited to know we were having a baby girl'
Karki moved to the U.S. in 2011 as part of an international effort, led by the U.S., to resettle Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees.
Two years later, at age 17, he was arrested for a burglary incident while living in Georgia. His current attorneys argue that Karki pleaded guilty without knowing that a felony could invalidate his green card and put him in removal proceedings.
Karki's sentence lasted several months between 2013 and 2014. Afterwards, he was placed in ICE detention but released months later under an order of supervision. A copy of ICE documents regarding Karki's release, reviewed by NPR, suggests that neither Bhutan nor Nepal was willing to accept him at the time.
Then, in April, during a routine check-in with ICE in Ohio, where he moved, Karki was taken into custody by immigration agents, according to court documents.
When Karki learned he would be deported to Bhutan, he thought it was a mistake, Basnet said.
"He wasn't even born in Bhutan. He never saw Bhutan," she added.
Basnet was eight months pregnant at the time. Two months later, she gave birth to their first child. She described the experience as lonely without her husband.
"I was crying while giving birth because the pain was overwhelming, and in that moment I needed my husband's love and support, but he wasn't there," she said.
Basnet knew it was also devastating for Karki, too.
"We had always dreamed about having a child, and he was so excited to know we were having a baby girl," she added.
'The U.S. made this promise of refugee resettlement and it was broken'
For years, Bhutan did not accept Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugees facing deportation from the U.S. But since Trump's return to office, dozens of people have been deported there, according to the Asian Law Caucus, which has been monitoring the removals.
It's unclear what triggered the change in policy, according to Villarosa from the Asian Law Caucus. The group submitted multiple Freedom of Information requests to the federal government regarding the deportations but received either limited responses or none at all, Villarosa said.
Last week, the organization filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, the State Department and other federal agencies over the unanswered FOIA requests.
" We want answers to why these deportations are happening," Villarosa said. "The U.S. made this promise of refugee resettlement and it was broken."
Bhutan has also come under scrutiny over accusations that authorities have turned away deportees within 24 hours of arrival. NPR previously reported on one refugee who said he was ordered to leave and then lived in the shadows in neighboring India without legal status of any kind.
Others, who alleged to have had the same experience, returned to what's left of their former refugee camps in Nepal. But even there, refugees have no path to citizenship. Earlier this year, the Nepali government ruled that deportees cannot stay in the country and must pay a fine until they leave.
"Folks are either missing, in hiding, in fear of their lives," Villarosa said.
The deportations have sent shockwaves through the small Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee community in the U.S. — stirring memories of statelessness and being targeted by a government.
" It haunts you constantly," said Robin Gurung, a Nepali-speaking Bhutanese refugee. He also co-founded Asian Refugees United, an advocacy group that has been at the forefront of raising awareness about the deportations.
In Ohio, Basnet said she has been trying to locate a possible family member in South Asia who can help Karki after his deportation. But so far, Basnet has had no success, since all of their relatives resettled to the U.S.
"I don't know where he is going to stay," she said. "He doesn't have a place, he doesn't know [anyone] there."
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