Courtesy of Jennifer Asif. Jennifer Asif, left, and her husband Adnan Asif, right, pose for a selfie.

PORT ISABEL, Texas — Despite holding a permit entitling him to work in the United States, Adnan Asif Parveen found himself lying on the cold floor of a Border Patrol detention facility with an aluminum sheet for a blanket. Even if he hadn’t been crammed into a gated room with three dozen migrants recently arrested at the border, it would have been difficult to sleep. His wife didn’t know where he was. And he had barely eaten. For the six days he spent in Border Patrol’s custody last month, he said the only food he received was a pork sandwich every eight hours. He explained that as a Muslim, he had to refuse. When the guards offered nothing else, he picked off the meat and ate just the bread. Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. A spokeswoman referred HuffPost to the agency’s detention standards, which require its officers to “remain cognizant of a detainee’s religious or other dietary restrictions.” A few days after Asif’s arrest, two officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement came to interview him about possible terrorist ties, he said. They took his phone and searched his contact list and social media. “They asked if at the mosque they say anything against the USA government,” Asif told HuffPost. “I said, no, the mosque is where you go to pray.” It’s unclear what could’ve prompted the questioning, other than Asif’s national origin and religion. ICE declined to discuss the interview or confirm whether it took place. Asif has no criminal record in the United States, where he’s lived since 2014, according to his lawyer Cathy Potter. He says he has no record in Spain, where he was raised, or in Pakistan, where he was born. Several times over Asif’s six days in Border Patrol’s custody, agents presented him with paperwork authorizing his deportation to Spain and asked if he wanted to sign. The last time, Asif was visibly upset. When one of the agents asked why, Asif said he was worried about his wife back in Ohio, who struggles with her health. The agent allowed him to make a five-minute phone call. When she answered, Asif found she had flown to Texas days earlier to look for him. After he hung up, he flatly refused to sign his deportation order. “I wanted to be with my wife,” Asif said. “And I said no — I’m not signing my deportation. I’m not going back like that.” Asif is now locked up at an ICE detention center in Port Isabel in South Texas, his work permit set to expire this month. But his arrest and looming possibility of deportation highlight how the bureaucratic complexity of the immigration enforcement system and peculiar scrutiny cast upon Muslims can jeopardize the status of immigrants ― even if they hold documents allowing them to work here. “This just blows my mind,” Potter, Asif’s lawyer, told HuffPost. “He’s not a danger to his community. He’s certainly not a flight risk. He’s got a wife and he’s devoted to her. Yet he’s detained and ICE refuses to release him.” But Potter suspects her client’s problems with U.S. immigration authorities began well before he drove to south Texas.

I just don’t think it makes sense that immigration can tell someone it’s OK to be here and then take that away and say they’re going to deport them. Adnan Asif's wife Jennifer

Asif had no intention to stay in the United States when he came to visit his uncle and cousins in New York in 2014. But he struck up a conversation with a woman named Jennifer, who happened to live in Columbus, Ohio, on a dating app called Badoo. By coincidence, Asif’s uncle owned a gas station out there and the two planned to visit. Asif took Jennifer on their first date for coffee at Burger King. He was still learning English back then, and she didn’t know any of the languages he spoke ― Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi or Spanish. So he translated phrases on the spot, gestured with his hands and scrolled through family pictures on his phone. Their limited communication was effective enough for them to understand they wanted to keep seeing each other. Asif never made it back to New York, let alone Spain. “I didn’t like the idea of him leaving,” Jennifer said. They moved in together, ignoring for the moment that the decision meant his legal status in the country had slipped away. “When you are happy with someone, you don’t think about your problems,” he said. At times, he considered returning to Europe with Jennifer. But they agreed that the United States offered better work opportunities, which meant getting him on the right side of the law. They married in September of 2016, on Jennifer’s 35th birthday. She sponsored him for a green card. Because he entered legally, he didn’t have to return to Europe to apply. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gave him a work permit and within a year had scheduled an interview — the final step in the green card process. But as the day approached, USCIS canceled the interview, telling the couple Asif’s application required a more extensive background check. Asif and Jennifer called periodically for updates, but a year and a half later, the check remained incomplete and the new interview unscheduled. The work permit, however, opened up more of the opportunities he’d hoped for. He left his old job working off the books and started driving for Uber and Lyft. He got a major pay bump last year after joining his cousin’s business, criss-crossing the country as a semi truck driver. His last route took him to south Texas — an assignment he would have refused had he understood the implications.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Border Patrol agents question drivers as they pass through the checkpoint at Falfurrias in south Texas in this file photo on Feb. 22, 2013.

As Asif drove toward Falfurrias around 1 a.m. on Jan. 11, he passed a sign warning him of an inspection station one mile away. He didn’t understand why he had to stop, but a second sign offered a clue: “Smuggling illegal aliens is a federal crime,” it read. Falfurrias lies about 80 miles from the nearest crossing to Mexico, but since the mid-1990s, Border Patrol hasexpanded checkpoints up to 100 miles into the interior of the United States to halt migrants and seize contraband, over theobjections of legal groups that view the stops as systematic violations of the 4th amendment’s protection against arbitrary searches. Outsiders are often only dimly aware that the checkpoints lie along virtually every major road extending from the U.S.-Mexico border, though they routinely result in high-profile stops. Country singer Willie Nelson, rapper Snoop Dogg, and formerTexas Monthly contributing editor Al Reinart are among the hapless victims busted for pot at such checkpoints, which are often staffed with drug-sniffing dogs. Agents who staff the checkpoints usually ask drivers just one question: “Are you a U.S. citizen?” When it was Asif’s turn to pass a flashing camera and park under the metal canopy, he said “no,” and offered his work permit. The document had expired in August. Asif had applied for a renewal a month before then, but had yet to receive it. This shouldn’t have been a problem ― USCIS automatically extends work authorizations like Asif’s forsix months to avoid problems with processing delays. But the agent pulled Asif aside for questioning. Asif searched his phone for proof of the automatic extension, but Border Patrol declined to accept it. By around 7 a.m., officers had taken him into custody. Jennifer found out about her husband’s arrest from his cousin, who had to go to Texas to recover the truck. Two days later, she flew there to look for him. She had no luck until the day she received the call. She saw him for the first time since his arrest after Border Patrol transferred him to ICE detention at Port Isabel. For about two weeks, she visited him daily. But the emergency visit cost her the part-time job she held caring for people with disabilities. Without Asif’s income, she returned to Columbus, where now she is driving for Uber and Lyft. “I just don’t think it makes sense that immigration can tell someone it’s OK to be here and then take that away and say they’re going to deport them,” Jennifer told HuffPost. “A lot of things don’t make sense right now.”

Associated Press A Border Patrol truck enters Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Port Isabel Detention Center in South Texas. Adnan Asif Parveen has been detained there since January.