DaytonDailyNews.com

Sami Hamdi could be a poster child for the way children with Down syndrome are embraced in American society.

He's a popular pupil at an Englewood preschool serving special-needs children.

He's the pampered pet of his family, a sunny-natured child who loves to sit on his mother's lap or play peek-a-boo with his three sisters.

Sami's mother, Fatiha Elgharib, knows that things would have been very different for her son in her native Morocco. "The truth is, if he had been born in my country, he would not be alive," she said.

But now Elgharib and her husband must decide whether to separate him permanently from his mother, or send him home with her to Morocco.

Elgharib is facing deportation, having exhausted her legal avenues to remain in this country. She returned home to Englewood on Nov. 26 after spending five months in jail for failing to appear at a deportation hearing. "The notice was sent to an old address, and I never received it," Elgharib said.

Jail has left the devout Muslim woman shaken. She is taking anti-anxiety medications after a lifetime of good health. But her greatest anxiety is what will happen to Sami and his thoroughly Americanized sisters if they are forced to return to their parents' native country. In Morocco, Elgharib said, children with Down syndrome are derided as "Mongoloids" and offered few educational opportunities or medical care.

It's equally hard to imagine how Sami would fare without his mother. When she was in jail, his language skills and potty training lapsed.

However you feel about immigration, here's the truth: Children are paying for the actions of their parents. Sami is a 5-year-old American citizen with Down syndrome. He is free to stay in this country.