A young woman’s honeymoon became a nightmare — and she’s not the only one.
Ward Sakeik is 22 years old. She is a college student, a newlywed, and a stateless woman who, as of this writing, has spent over four months in ICE detention with no clear path to freedom.
Her story is not only urgent it’s profoundly unsettling. What does it mean to be so thoroughly excluded from the human order that no country will claim you? What happens when your very existence falls outside the legal imagination of the state?
Who Is Ward Sakeik?
- Born stateless in Saudi Arabia to Palestinian refugee parents. Saudi Arabia does not grant citizenship by birth, and Palestine offers no reliable path to formal nationality.
- Came to the U.S. at age 8 on a tourist visa. Her asylum claim was denied in 2011. She has lived since then under an “order of supervision,” regularly checking in with ICE.
- Arrested on her honeymoon in February 2025 while traveling through the U.S. Virgin Islands. Customs and Border Protection detained her at the St. Thomas airport.
- Held in ICE custody ever since. Despite having no criminal record and a pending green card application filed by her U.S. citizen husband, she remains confined at Prairieland Detention Center in Texas.
- Targeted for deportation to “the Israeli border.” A country she has never entered and which has not agreed to accept her.
- Stateless, without a passport, and with no country to return to, Ward is being held in indefinite detention — a legal and moral black hole.
Statelessness: The Legal Non-Existence
Over 10 million people worldwide are stateless, according to the UNHCR. Statelessness can result from colonial displacement, gender-biased nationality laws, war, migration, or bureaucratic erasure.
“They are the right-less, the outlaws, the outcast,” said Hannah Arendt, describing those who live outside the circle of nation-states.
Being stateless means:
- No right to vote
- No right to travel
- No legal protections
- No recourse to state assistance
You are not undocumented. You are unacknowledged.
A System Built for No One
ICE attempted to deport Ward to a location she has never lived. When that failed due to lack of a receiving nation, she was simply kept behind bars. ICE’s public justification? She left U.S. territory when she entered the Virgin Islands, violating her supervised release.
But the U.S. Virgin Islands are a U.S. territory. Her removal order, long dormant, was resurrected on a technicality.
Ward has now been detained for more than 120 days, far beyond the 90-day post-removal detention standard outlined in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), which forbids indefinite detention when deportation is not “reasonably foreseeable.”
This is not justice. This is entrapment.
How to Help Right Now
Ward Sakeik is not just a case. She is a symbol of what happens when bureaucracy replaces humanity.
You can take action:
Donate to CAIR-DFW Legal Fund (Ward’s Case)
Support Asylum Seekers via ASAP
Global Statelessness Reform (Institute on Statelessness & Inclusion)
Even $5 to any of these efforts strengthens the fight for her freedom — and for others like her.
Cassandra? What’s The Bottom Line?
Ward’s story challenges us to ask:
What kind of system detains a woman with no country to return to, no crime committed, and no release date in sight?
What kind of future are we building if we allow people to exist without place, without recognition, without recourse?
Statelessness is not an accident. It is a system decision. And right now, that system is holding a young woman hostage for the crime of not belonging.
Let us not look away.
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