Afghan refugees. A scientist. A birthright citizen. Hear from Indianapolis immigrants

Indianapolis Star

2 days ago

When a Mexican family learned that ICE agents could enter U.S. churches to detain undocumented immigrants, they changed their habits.
Instead of sitting in the pews of an Indianapolis church every Sunday morning, the family now gathers in their living room to pray to Christ while watching Mass on TV.
The United States' crackdown on illegal immigration — which occurred under President Joe Biden even before President Donald Trump became far more aggressive about it in January — has affected many Indianapolis residents' daily lives in ways large and small.
Almost 100,000 of the 970,000 people living in Marion County are foreign-born.
Some have become naturalized citizens; others are here on visas. Many are undocumented — living here without legal authorization.
They account for a quarter of the state's foreign-born population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
And they're sad and afraid.
Many migrants living in Indiana in 2025 worry that they or those they love will become the Trump administration's next target for deportation. It's constantly on their minds, whether warranted or not, and regardless of their legal status or nationality.
Indiana has seen several international students have their legal status wrongfully removed by the Trump administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting raids in cities and the deportation of Indiana migrants.
These actions have led a number of migrants to ask: "What is my future in this country?"
IndyStar sat with a few of the city's foreign-born residents to learn about their stories and share their feelings.
Sulaman Akbarzada could hardly maintain his balance or sit up straight as he and his then-fiancée, Arzo, left their country of Afghanistan, packed in an American C-17 transport plane with hundreds of other Afghans.
As the plane bobbed and weaved through the sky, he held onto his one suitcase full of clothes for stability.
He remembers the sobbing that echoed in the plane as he and hundreds of other Afghans fled as part of Operation Allies Refuge, an evacuation effort undertaken by the United States in the final weeks of the war in Afghanistan in 2021.
He relives that moment as his 2-year-old daughter jumps onto his lap in their apartment in South Indianapolis.
It's been four years since Sulaman, Arzo and members of his family fled from Afghanistan for fear that they would be killed for their Shia Islamic beliefs.
They soon found themselves living in a completely new country as refugees, hardly knowing the language. They left behind Akbarzada's engineering company and almost every worldly possession they owned, all in hopes of finding peace.
'It was a hard transition,' Akbarzada said.
Over the last few years, the Akbarzadas have moved forward.
The pair got married. They applied for and received their lawful permanent residency cards, and welcomed two daughters into the world.
The last four years have been hard on the couple, but it's also given them a glimpse of the American Dream.
Arzo has been trying to balance the life of a mom while also completing an adult general education certificate. Akbarzada works long hours at a local warehouse to provide his family with 'a good life.'
Since becoming lawful permanent residents, the dream of owning a home has become more of a realistic possibility for Sulaman and Azro. On the weekends, the family loads up in their Honda Passport and explores homes recently placed on the market.
But still, they fear that at the drop of a hat, the United States could change its policies toward refugees, ultimately making their family vulnerable to deportation.
If they are sent back to Afghanistan, Akbarzada said, he will be killed, and his wife and daughters will be sold into slavery, due to their history of helping the United States.
'The idea of buying a car and buying a house, these are all things I want to do, but that fear stops me sometimes. From doing those big life jumps,' he said.
'All my life I work hard, working 16 hours a day and then in the blink of an eye, you lose everything. That's not easy. That fear is similar to something that happened to me in Afghanistan.'
Akbarzada understands America's current political climate, and he understands why some people may not want him in the country.
'I will always be thankful to America even if they say bye to me,' he said. 'Even if (America) decides about us that we should leave — honestly — I will leave. But I cannot go back to Afghanistan. (America) should send us somewhere safe.'
The only thing Akbarzada truly wants in this world is for his daughters to grow into successful women.
"They shouldn't have to experience what I've experienced," he said. "They should only know peace."
The Rev. Fatima Yakubu-Madus left her home country of Nigeria in 1979 to study chemistry and biology at Mississippi State University.
"When I went to that school, I felt welcomed. I didn't know any history about what had happened at that school (during desegregation), and yet they gave me all the opportunities I needed to succeed," she said.
After graduating from Mississippi State, Yakubu-Madus continued her education, ultimately receiving her master's from Vanderbilt University, before starting her three-decade career at Eli Lilly in Indiana.
She played a pivotal role in the pharmaceutical company's efforts to hire some of the country's best Black scientists.
"I remember when I first started, there were very few Black people at Lilly," Yakubu-Madus said. "I could walk all the way from one corridor to the other and not see another Black person."
When Yakubu-Madus retired from the company in 2018, not only was she a mentor figure to a generation of scientists, but she also had four patents under her name for ideas that she helped develop during her career.
In 2010, Yakubu-Madus was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church, after hearing the call from the Lord to expand her spiritual journey and help people in Indianapolis.
Raised Muslim, she converted to Christianity after moving to the United States. She wanted to help bring communities together through a greater inter­faith understanding.
She now serves as a deacon at Christ Church Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis.
A naturalized citizen, Yakubu-Madus says that the only reason she could have the life and career she did was because of the country's once-welcoming nature toward immigrants.
It wasn't until recently that Yakubu-Madus felt singled out for being an immigrant.
During Trump's recent campaign and following his election, she heard people discuss the idea that immigrants entering America were either coming illegally, were criminals or had some other negative connotation attached to them.
These discussions sat negatively with her, because they challenged the image of America she knew, the one that would open its arms to a young Nigerian woman and allow her to achieve the American Dream, even as an adopted daughter.
"I am really disappointed with the way things are going," she said. "This is not what I knew when I came here. People were more welcoming — and I think they still are.
"I think it's just a segment of other people that think the immigrants are here to cause problems. But they are not," Yakubu-Madus said.
"People leave their countries not because they want to be criminals. They leave their countries because they want life."
When Yakubu-Madus learned that the Indiana General Assembly was considering several bills in early 2025 aimed at bolstering law enforcement powers against immigrants, she knew she needed to speak up for those who couldn't defend themselves.
The immigration legislation created a wave of fear that rippled through Indianapolis' immigrant communities, Yakubu-Madus shared. Those fears remained even after the General Assembly ended for the year.
But she hopes that by sharing her story and the word of the Lord, she can remind Indiana leaders and residents of one of God's most important lessons: 'When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God,' reads Leviticus 19:33-34.
Kelin Peraza-Argueta, 18, doesn't remember a life outside the United States.
Her parents risked the journey from El Salvador to America while Peraza-Argueta's mother was pregnant with her in 2007.
They had witnessed their country fall into chaos after political policies failed to curb El Salvador's growing gang violence problem, which would result in the highest murder rate in the world by 2009.
The couple knew they wanted to give their family a better life, which is why they brought their daughters to the United States, where they made sure Peraza-Argueta and her younger sister were born.
Those born in the United States are automatically American citizens, according to the Constitution — even if the mother is in the country illegally — although Trump is trying to end birthright citizenship.
Peraza-Argueta's family settled in Indianapolis after arriving in the country.
The couple raised their three children knowing that they and their oldest daughter could be deported at any moment. Peraza-Argueta spoke to IndyStar on condition that her family members not be named.
After Trump, a Republican, was elected president for the first time in 2016, Peraza-Argueta remembers her parents sitting her and her siblings down to explain the possibility that they could be forced to leave the United States. She was in fourth grade at the time and vividly remembers the fear that hung over everyone after that discussion.
'I always thought that my parents were going to be taken away from me,' Peraza-Argueta said.
'It just made me sad to know that so many young children out there and so many people in our community are so afraid to go out, to buy groceries or even too scared to leave their homes.'
During the Biden administration, Peraza-Argueta began to believe that her parents were safe.
Then one day in early 2024, her mother didn't come home from running errands.
'It was terrifying; she had just disappeared,' Peraza-Argueta said.
Peraza-Argueta remembers her family calling every law enforcement station in the area.
'It was a very frustrating process because you don't know what's happening," she said. "… You just have to wait.'
For days, she entered her mother's name in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainee locator system but found no results.
Finally, while Peraza-Argueta was taking their two family dogs to the veterinarian, her ICE search turned up information about her mother's whereabouts.
After hours of navigating the system, the family got hold of their mother and asked what had happened.
But their mother was just as confused as they were, Peraza-Argueta said. She remembered being pulled over by law enforcement before being hauled away and placed in an immigration detention center in Clay County, Indiana.
The mother didn't know why she was initially arrested or how long she would be held in ICE's detention center, but she was happy that her family was able to find her.
For the next few months, Peraza-Argueta and other family members would call their mother almost every day. Peraza-Argueta couldn't visit her mother at the detention center as she was only 17 and still in high school. The older members of her family were afraid of visiting the facility because of their own immigration status.
'We ended up celebrating Mother's Day over the phone,' Peraza-Argueta said. "We celebrated my mother's birthday over the phone, and we sang her 'Happy Birthday.' Cutting her birthday cake and blowing out her candles was so heartbreaking because she wasn't there to actually enjoy any of it."
Her mother was deported to El Salvador a few months later. She has tried to start a new life there, hoping to be reunited with her daughters and husband one day.
'It was a horrible feeling. It was like my mom had died, even though she didn't actually die, she was just very far away from us,' Peraza-Argueta said.
'Losing a parent like that is probably one of the most traumatic things I've ever experienced in my life, and nothing could have ever prepared me for that.'
Since her mother's deportation, Peraza-Argueta has decided to use her privilege as a U.S. citizen to speak out against the Trump administration's position on immigration and organize youth, while still juggling her responsibilities as a high school student.
She's also a member of the Indianapolis Mayor's Youth Leadership Council, where she advocates for immigrants in the community.
"Most of the time, our voices aren't heard because people don't take us seriously because of our age," she said.
"These are our parents, these are our family members, so it's really important to us that we take a stance for the people that sacrificed everything for us to have a better life."
Immigrants who have come to this country illegally they should have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream like prior immigrants, she said, if they've been good neighbors.