Rojina Akter worked six hours at a dollar store on Tuesday, took an hour-long bus ride home, sat on the couch of her two-bedroom apartment in Elizabeth and contemplated her uncertain future.

Her husband, Amenul Hoque, was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 17 at the Newark fried chicken restaurant where he worked and was deported Monday, ICE confirmed.

Rojina Akter, second from left, with her 11-year-old son, her daughter Evana Akter, 19, and her 15-year-old son inside their apartment in Elizabeth on Tuesday. 2/13/2018 (Marisa Iati | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Ahead of a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE on Thursday, Akter, a Bangladesh native, said she wondered whether authorities would deport her, too, and what would happen to her three children.

"Who will take care of my kids? They're too small," Akter, 39, said Tuesday in an emotional interview at her home. "I don't want to leave them alone here."

A rally in support of Akter is scheduled for Thursday from 8 to 11 a.m. outside of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services building at 970 Broad St. in Newark.

Emilio Dabul, a spokesman for ICE's Newark office, said Hoque had been ordered removed by an immigration judge and the agency in January was ready to execute the removal order.

"His wife's case will be reviewed based on case-specific circumstances, as is done in all cases," Dabul said.

Immigration advocates say stories like Akter's show a sea change in officials' priorities for detentions and deportations. Immigrants without criminal records who were considered low priorities for removal used to be able to regularly report to ICE and be released with another check-in scheduled in six months or a year.

President Donald Trump in his first month in office, however, signed executive orders significantly expanding the categories of unauthorized immigrants who could be targeted for deportation, including those with final removal orders like the ones Hoque and Akter received in 2011.

ICE officials made 143,470 administrative arrests nationwide in 2017, up 30 percent from 2016, according to data on the agency's website. Deportations were down slightly, from 240,255 in 2016 to 226,119 last year, the data shows.

"I think that there's a real fear of the brazenness, the speed at which people are being deported and the fact that pickups seem so arbitrary," said S. Nadia Hussein, a co-founder the Paterson-based Bangladeshi American Women's Development Initiative. "It's like Russian roulette right now."

Seeking political asylum

Akter said she and Hoque, 51, left Bangladesh in 2000 after Hoque's brother was arrested by political opponents without warning and jailed for nine months. Fearing for Hoque's life, the couple and the two children they had at the time moved to Botswana, Akter said.

Amenul Hoque, 51, in New York City's Central Park (Courtesy of Evana Akter)

The family faced danger there, too, Akter said. She said they woke up one night to find people armed with knives and guns robbing the store attached to their house, and they came to the United States in 2004 in search of safety.

They received six-month visas to stay in the country and lived with relatives in New York for a few weeks before they moved to Elizabeth, Akter said. After they overstayed their visas, ICE detained Hoque for 11 months in 2010, she said.

Akter said the family members applied for political asylum and were denied several times. She and Hoque were assigned supervision and required to check in regularly with ICE officials in Newark.

A second detention

After Akter's 19-year-old daughter, Evana Akter, came home from her job at a pharmacy on Jan. 17, two men knocked on the family's door. They did not identify themselve as ICE officers, Evana Akter said, but told her they wanted to verify that her father lived there and had a steady source of income.

Evana Akter, a first-year nursing student at Union County Community College, said she figured the men were ICE agents and called her dad to tell him they were looking for him. Half an hour later, she said, her mom called to tell her ICE had picked up her dad at his workplace.

Through phone calls home, Hoque told the family he was being held first in Newark, then in Louisiana and finally in Texas. He was deported Monday back to Bangladesh, the family learned when they received a phone call from relatives there.

"My dad had come here and filed a political asylum case because he didn't feel safe in his country," said Evana Akter. "So him being back is very dangerous for us."

What comes next

Through an attorney and with the assistance of immigration advocates, the family is seeking to renew Akter's stay of removal so she will be allowed to stay in the country and care for her children. Thursday's rally outside the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Newark will coincide with Akter's meeting with ICE officials inside.

Akter's two youngest children, 11 and 15-years-old, attend Elizabeth Public Schools. Evana and the 15-year-old are undocumented, while the youngest son was born in the United States and is a citizen.

Hussain said if Akter is detained, her youngest son may become a ward of the state. She said she does not know what would happen to the 15-year-old son, who is not protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program like his older sister.

Evana Akter said if her mom is forced to leave the country, she and her brothers would have to move to Bangladesh, too.

"I cannot take care of my two brothers by myself if they do detain her," she said. "So if they detain her and try to send her away, we would have to follow."

If Akter returns to Elizabeth after her appointment on Thursday, she will have to figure out what to do next, she said. Her job at a dollar store in East Orange is only two or three days a week, and she said the family depended on her husband's income to make end's meet.

For now, though, her mind is on Thursday.

"I want to come back," Akter said. "I want to stay with my kids."

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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