After their dad was deported, family works to keep his Humboldt Park sandwich shop and legacy alive.
Nooran Amin knows the drill by now at the Best Sub #2 sandwich shop in Humboldt Park.
On a stiflingly hot weekday morning, he opens the door, heads toward the kitchen and turns on the grill and the deep fryers.
“Those two things take the longest to heat up,” he says. “Then, I turn on the lights, turn on the fans, take some fries out, take the burger buns out.”
Nooran is 19. Until last fall, he was a college student at Dominican University who loved watching football and sending Instagram reels to his friends. He had a part-time job at an optical store near his family’s home in Addison and helped work the cash register at Best Sub #2 — his dad’s restaurant — only during school breaks.
Everything changed last September. That’s when Nooran’s father, 64-year-old Asif Amin Cheema, was detained by federal immigration agents just three minutes from his home during the early days of Operation Midway Blitz. Despite having no criminal record, he was arrested because he had a removal order for a missed court date, something the family says their former immigration lawyer did not tell them about.
Since that day, the family has been trying to keep the sandwich shop afloat while settling into a busier — and decidedly harder — new life without their patriarch. And as the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign continues to upend the lives of families throughout the United States, they wonder whether the country where Cheema built his life still welcomes them.
When the family learned Cheema was in detention at the Broadview ICE facility, Nooran, the youngest of five kids, was given his marching orders.
“They were, like,’You’re gonna have to take care of the store, you’re gonna have to step up,’ ” he says.
Nooran Amin, 19, is helping to run his father’s sandwich shop. He’s had to take on a lot more responsibility since his father was deported back to Pakistan.
Stepping up
Nooran’s dad spent close to three months in detention at the Clay County Jail in Indiana. He lost 30 pounds and experienced various health complications.
On New Year’s Day this year, he was deported to Pakistan, a place where he hadn’t lived for more than 30 years.
Nooran, whose facial hair does little to hide his baby face, had to learn the ins and outs of the shop from an employee, a family friend he calls “Uncle.”
Now, he opens and closes the sub shop by himself many days and is even trying to modernize the place. He replaced a cash register that was older than he is for a new electronic system that tracks popular items and the restaurant’s busiest times. He’s thinking of new menu items to help with sales.
There’s a lot less time for watching sports, playing cricket and seeing friends.
When asked if he misses his old life, Nooran answers with a soft “yeah.”
He recently transferred to the architecture program at the University of Illinois Chicago, and he’s not sure how he’ll juggle school and the sandwich shop. But he has to make it work because his mother and siblings are all busy with other responsibilities.
“I don’t want to put more pressure on them,” he says. “If I can’t do it, then who will?”
When Nooran’s dad was first detained, he told the family to sell the sub shop so it wouldn’t be a burden. But that was never an option, according to the Amin children.
“If we lose this restaurant, we’ll lose anything of my dad in the U.S.,” Nooran says.
His sister, Rabia Amin, agrees. So she’s grateful that her baby brother — whom she still remembers as a pudgy, grumpy toddler — took the reins at the shop.
“I’m really proud of him, and I tell him this,” says Rabia, 27. “He’s had to build a lot more confidence [and] take a lot more responsibilities than he probably should have at his age.”
Rabia, too, has a packed schedule, working as a law clerk downtown and studying for the bar exam. She helps with the business side of the sandwich shop and is keeping up with her dad’s immigration case. When heavy rains flood the family’s basement, Rabia is on cleanup duty, too.
A self-proclaimed “unserious person,” Rabia is quick to crack a joke or get loud and animated. But when asked how the family is coping, she suddenly chokes up and reaches for a tissue.
Some days, she will come home from work and see her mother crying. The late-night FaceTime calls with her dad aren’t always easy because everyone is tired from their long days.
She says “it takes 20 people” to fill the void her father has left. While she has tried to help everyone get out of the house more and practice self-care, the family is still in survival mode, with every member carrying a heavier load, living busier than ever.
Except for her dad, back in the village he left as a young man.
Asif Amin Cheema, pictured here this spring, was deported back to Pakistan in January 2026. He had not lived there in more than 30 years.
Alone in Pakistan
“I still don’t think he’s accepted the fact that he’s in Pakistan,” Rabia says.
She visited him in April, for his birthday, taking some of his medicine and clothes over.
She says Cheema — who used to work 12-hour days and then would come home to garden, spend time with his family, and care for his beloved pet birds — looked lethargic and took a lot of naps, something he rarely did here.
Rabia recalls a plaintive moment during that trip in April, when Nooran FaceTimed his dad from the sandwich shop to ask a question about a malfunctioning deep-fryer. Cheema talked his son through the steps to fix it, and the fryer was up and running in no time.
But then, Rabia says, he grew quiet and “started disassociating.” She asked him what was wrong and gently coaxed a response out of him.
“He basically was like, ‘It just made me really sad seeing him working there and me not being there. I miss the restaurant, I miss my son, I miss my wife. Why am I here?’ ” Rabia recalls. “I’ve never seen my dad like that ever.”
Rabia says her dad missed several big milestones in his kids’ lives in the past year: Her little sister, who the siblings agree is their dad’s favorite child, graduated from college. Her older sister got engaged. And, of course, there were the parties and family gatherings where he used to be a boisterous and larger-than-life presence.
Rabia Amin, 27, worries about her dad because he is alone in Pakistan. She says he has been lethargic and unmotivated because his family is not with him.
‘I don’t think this country is deserving of my father’
Cheema recently bought a flock of pigeons to take care of in the village. Rabia is not fond of them, but they bring her dad some joy. The family has encouraged him to start a sandwich shop in the village, but he has been resistant. Rabia thinks that’s because his family, his biggest source of motivation, is not with him.
She says she is beginning to accept that her dad will never be the same again. And now, she’s worried about him aging in Pakistan by himself.
“I wanted to be the one who took care of my parents when they got old. That’s what me and my siblings always planned,” she says. “I don’t know if I can do that because dad is across the world right now.”
She’s also been feeling a lot of guilt lately.
“Dad gave up everything and gave me such a beautiful life,” she says. “I have a dream job, I have a dream house. My family’s great, my friends are amazing … and Dad’s just back where he left.”
Recently, the family started exploring the idea of moving to another country, like Canada or England. They haven’t thought through all the details, but the idea is to relocate to a place where everyone can travel freely without fear.
They’ll still see if there’s a way to bring Cheema back to the U.S., but they’ve tried unsuccessfully to get him legal status here before, and the process is long.
Moreover, Rabia says, the family has been feeling less welcome in America these days.
“Why would you not want a hard-working, successful businessman who raised five kids here who all contribute to society?” she says. “I don’t think this country is deserving of my father, or of the hardworking immigrants that come here.”
The Trump administration announced the start of Operation Midway Blitz on Sept. 8, 2025. The government said it was going after the “worst of the worst.” Trump’s mass deportation campaign has affected the lives of people across the Chicago area. The Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ are exploring the lasting impact of the sweeping enforcement operation.