Home at Last

By Amy Martin

After seven months of sanctuary at a church in Old Lyme, Malik bin Rehman and Zahida Altaf returned to New Britain on Tuesday, October 16, 2018. That Thursday morning. Sen. Richard Blumenthal bought and served ten pizzas to a festive crowd huddled into Pizza Corner to celebrate the couple’s return. Members of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme drove forty-five minutes to celebrate along with residents of New Britain, the CCSU advocacy group, legislators, and ACLU People Power. The Pakastani couple owns Pizza Corner on 36 Broad Street in New Britain.

ICE is no longer fighting the couples’s request for a stay deportation. Malik’s ankle bracelet was removed by ICE Friday morning right before the gathering, “and we hope he stays,” Atty. Glenn Formica told the crowd. Formica, who saw the couple for free, attributed their freedom to community effort.

Rehman and Altaf are now reunited with their five-year-old daughter Roniya, who was staying with relatives.

The New Britain Common Council had passed a resolution in support of Rehman and Altaf right before they went into Sanctuary. ICE had ordered the couple to be deported to Pakistan.    

“This is a uniquely American story,”Blumenthal told the crowd. “A Pakastani couple with an Italian restaurant in Little Poland just left Sanctuary from a congregational church formed by Yankees.”  The couple has lived in New Britain for the past eighteen years. They had overstayed their visas but were trying to become legal. Bin Rehman said they had been swindled by immigration lawyers who took thousands of dollars.