Though Chakanetsa Christopher Matimba recently spent his birthday in the Jefferson County jail in Rigby awaiting deportation to his native Zimbabwe, he remains hopeful that an appeal filed by his attorney will have a miraculous outcome.

Matimba turned 40 on Monday, the same day his attorney Chris Christensen of Boise filed a notice of appeal with the federal Board of Immigration Appeals in Virginia to reconsider the 2007 order to remove Matimba from the U.S. after he was convicted of domestic battery.

“I feel like I am getting sentenced again for the same crime,” Matimba said about his current detainment during a Wednesday phone interview from jail.

Matimba has called Pocatello home since 2002 when he immigrated to the U.S. from Zimbabwe, a country currently engulfed in deadly politically motivated violence.  

Despite now facing deportation back to Zimbabwe, Matimba isn’t thinking about his future, but rather what the future holds for his loved ones. Here in the U.S., Matimba is a father to an 11-year-old son and stepfather to his wife’s two children. He has been married since 2012 and graduated from Idaho State University with a bachelor's degree in business in 2011.

”I’m hanging in there,” Matimba said from jail on Wednesday. “I’m holding onto hope for this appeal. But missing the summer with the kids out of school really sucks.”

Hope, however, may not be enough for Matimba, who remains in a precarious position as he awaits a ruling on the appeal — a process his attorney said could take at least four months and up to a year.

If the appeal goes his way, Matimba will be allowed to remain in the U.S. But until the Board of Immigration Appeals makes its ruling, Matimba could be deported at any moment considering the emergency stay request to postpone his removal from the U.S. filed by Christensen last month was denied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Matimba was jailed on June 5 after voluntarily checking in at an ICE facility in Idaho Falls. Christensen then submitted a motion to the court to revisit the original ruling in 2007 ordering Matimba’s deportation and to request an emergency stay of that removal order to keep him from being deported.

The emergency stay was temporarily approved but effectively voided when the judge denied the motion to revisit the original 2007 ruling.

When the appeal to that denial was filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals on Monday, Christensen requested an additional stay that is still pending. But until the board rules on Matimba's case, he could be deported at any time, Christensen said.

“The board may or may not rule on the emergency motion for the stay of removal,” Christensen said. “My experience has been mixed with the Board of Immigration Appeals. Sometimes you may get an order staying removal and other times you won’t get any response from the board.”

Furthermore, the likelihood of Matimba being released from jail while his appeal is heard is very slim, Christensen added.

“(Matimba) has a final order of removal and the only agency that has the authority to release him is ICE,” Christensen said. “They have been clear that they are not willing to do this at this time.”

In a statement released to the Journal earlier this month, ICE said the bottom line is that Matimba was convicted of a crime in 2006, domestic battery, that essentially made it illegal for him to remain in the United States.

Matimba was in ICE custody following his conviction when an immigration judge ordered his deportation. But Zimbabwe officials never provided the necessary travel documents so he was eventually released. 

When Zimbabwe officials finally provided those documents earlier this year, Matimba was jailed pending deportation.

Matimba points out that he not only served his sentence of probation for the domestic battery conviction but in the many years since he's successfully worked to have the offense completely removed from his criminal record. ICE is essentially trying to deport him for a criminal conviction that is no longer on his record. And since the 2006 conviction, Matimba has not been charged with any other criminal offenses. 

If Matimba is still in jail on Dec. 5, Christensen said he could challenge the detention in federal court asking for Matimba’s release.

“Essentially we would say ICE can’t imminently remove this person so there is no reason for him to hang out detained forever,” Christensen said. “We could even try to contact ICE again and plead to have (Matimba) released but I don’t know how likely something like that would be.”

Meanwhile, adjusting to life inside the Jefferson County jail has been a difficult process for Matimba.

“You have to get used to jail food and activities,” Matimba said. “I only get one hour of outside activity five days a week.”

For someone separated from his family and facing deportation, Matimba is trying to keep his spirits up.

“They say the television was invented in Rigby, but at the jail here there is no television,” Matimba said with a laugh.

If his appeal is denied, Matimba will likely die as soon as he lands in Zimbabwe, according to his sisters who live there. The sisters recently wrote an email obtained by the Journal in which they expressed their fears that if Matimba is deported to Zimbabwe he will be executed by the government there because of his past Zimbabwe political affiliations.   

“The political situation in Zimbabwe is volatile right now,” Matimba said. “People are getting shot in the streets. It wasn’t that bad when I left.”

Matimba added, “I don’t even know what to expect when I get there. I’m sure there won’t be a welcoming committee. That’s why we are fighting as hard as we are.”