The family of a Chicago sandwich shop owner who was deported is not giving up hope.
Asif Amin Cheema, 63, was arrested last fall and deported to Pakistan in January.
Cheema owns Best Sub Number Two, a popular eatery on North Avenue in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. His daughter, Rabia Amin says the community is suffering without him, telling WBBM, "His second family is the Humboldt Park community. And so when he was deported, it really, really impacted not just the Humboldt Park community, but everyone he's been connected with through the Muslim community and where we live in the suburbs."
Amin says they're having a fundraiser at the restaurant on Sunday, as well as an ongoing GoFundMe, to help bring her father back, and help others.
"A portion of the proceeds...will go to ICIRR, that's (the) Illinois Coalition of Immigration (and) Refugee Rights."
Amin says her father was not in violation of the law, but there was a decades-old removal order against him that he was not aware of when he was arrested.
"He needs to be back home with his family. He didn't have a criminal record, he had work authorization...It's not that he was illegal or he was cheating the government or doing anything wrong, it was just moreso, I think, that he was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time."