Neighbors angry as ICE arrests owners of popular Jersey Kebab restaurant in South Jersey

The day after ICE agents arrested the Turkish immigrant owners of a popular South Jersey restaurant, upset neighbors responded by raising more than $150,000 to support the family.

The Jersey Kebab restaurant in Haddon Township remained closed after federal agents took the middle-aged couple who own the business into custody at midmorning Tuesday.

The husband, Celal Emanet, 51, was released late Tuesday after being fitted with an electronic ankle monitor. His wife, Emine, 47, continues to be held at a detention center in Elizabeth, N.J.

“My dad, he’s never gotten a parking ticket,” said their son, Muhammed Emanet, 25, who manages the restaurant. “Now he’s walking around with an ankle monitor on his ankle, like he’s a criminal.”

His mother, he said, “She’s stuck behind bars, a person that never committed a crime in their life.”

On Wednesday, Muhammed Emanet was out delivering bread — taking a quick, temporary job to try to ensure that the family had some income.

Celal and Emine Emanet came legally to the United States from Turkey in 2008, but fell out of status when their visas expired. They have been awaiting a government decision on their application for legal permanent residency since 2016, having been turned down several times previously, according to their son.

A Go Fund Me campaign begun by friends and neighbors had raised more than $150,000 as of Wednesday night as donations continued to arrive. More than 3,000 people gave money.

ICE officials in New Jersey had not responded to questions about the case as of Wednesday night.

Muhammed Emanet said he arrived at work about 11 a.m. Tuesday to find a federal marshal standing outside the restaurant holding what he described as a machine gun, “looking like we’re going to war.”

Emanet said he was allowed to enter after explaining that he worked there.

Inside, he said, he found his father and mother in handcuffs. Both parents were soon removed from the restaurant and taken away, he said. Agents also went to the family’s home in Cherry Hill.

His father, Muhammed Emanet said in an interview on Wednesday, is a highly educated religious scholar, and came to the United States after being invited to serve as an imam at a local mosque.

The first goal, he said, is to free his mother from detention. But at the same time, Emanet said, the family needs money to survive.

The restaurant, which opened in 2020, will be closed indefinitely.

“It took us 16 years to build,” Muhammed Emanet said. “People have witnessed our biggest fears come to life.”

In an interview outside the restaurant on Wednesday evening, Celal Emanet told The Inquirer that in 27 years of marriage, he had never seen his wife so upset as when she was taken into custody.

“She was crying a lot,” he said. “It was unbelievable.”

By staying in the U.S. after the expiration of their visas, the family lost legal status. People who are in the United States without official permission can be arrested and deported at any time.

The Trump administration has pushed to increase the number of immigration arrests as it carries out what it says will be the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history.

Critics maintain that while ICE says it’s targeting dangerous, criminal immigrants, it often arrests people who pose no danger to the communities in which they live. Observers say the pressure for arrests and the insurmountable numbers — ICE employs about 20,000, while 13.7 million are undocumented — causes the agency to act against migrants whose only offense is being here without permission.

In this case, local supporters say, the Emanets are businesspeople who pay taxes, sought legal status, and who regularly provide free meals to the hungry. A sign on the restaurant door states, “Free to anyone with a disability, homeless, or simply cannot afford it.”

“This is gutting,” one man, Garrett White, posted on social media, noting the family’s care for the less fortunate. “They have been nothing short of incredible people to us ever since we first started frequenting there.”

Another person, Miche Nickolaisen, was organizing a group to visit the offices of U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross to register the community’s concern.

Norcross said late Wednesday that he had been in contact with the family and was reaching out to the appropriate federal agencies.

“By all accounts, it appears as though Celal and Emine Emanet are upstanding members of our community who came to the United States legally and took every measure necessary to ensure they can remain living here with legal status,” Norcross said.

The couple’s nearly decade-long wait for a decision on legal permanent residency underscores the need to fix a broken immigration system, the congressman added.

“The idea that a family can legally come to the United States, run a business, and give back to their local community is the American dream, and we must create an immigration system that stays true to our American values,” he said.

Rebeca Silva de Foote, a township resident who patronizes the eatery, said it was shocking that U.S. marshals would arrive at the door of a business that serves not just the community but those who are homeless.

“It really makes me question what the objective is of our administration. Is it really to go after criminals?” she said. “There’s been a massive push to get anyone who is here and undocumented.”

President Donald Trump was elected partly on a promise to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history, and has moved swiftly to try to fulfill that pledge. On Friday the administration reassigned the top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the pace of arrests and deportations.

In Philadelphia, reports of ICE activity have increased since Trump was inaugurated, including last month’s raid of a North Philadelphia car wash in which seven undocumented men were arrested.

None of those taken into custody had criminal records, according to immigration advocates, who questioned why ICE leaders who have pledged to conduct “worst first” arrests, targeting those suspected of violent crimes, had set their sights on a small neighborhood business.

ICE has about 42,000 immigrants in custody and electronically monitors nearly five times that number, according to government statistics. Nearly 55% of those in detention have no criminal record.

The Mediterranean Jersey Kebab restaurant stands on Haddon Avenue, across from the township municipal building. According to the Go Fund Me campaign, the couple live with their four children, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.

Two of the children are American citizens by birth. Muhammed, the manager at Jersey Kebab, came here from Turkey as a child.

He graduated from Camden County College and today is a husband and father. His sister, Zeynep, 23, is a Swarthmore College graduate and works at a local civil-rights organization, according to the Go Fund Me information.

Muhammed Emanet said the situation is especially upsetting for his 15-year-old brother, Hamza, who is autistic.

The family has worked to overcome challenges in creating a life in the United States, he said.

Absence of legal immigration status makes them and others ineligible for most federal benefits, and generally unable to obtain loans for business and education. Government regulations require they pay taxes but grant no benefits, such as Social Security, he noted.

His father holds a doctorate in Islamic history, though that academic credential and education is not recognized here.

“He’s behind a grill all day,” the son said, adding that was merely a fact, not a complaint. “We’re perfectly fine. That’s what God has provided for us. … Everything we’ve had in this country, we’ve built from the ground up.”

Inquirer staff photographer Tom Gralish contributed reporting to this article.

This story has been updated to correct where Muhammed Emanet attended college.