A federal judge has temporarily halted the Trump regime’s attempt to deport more than 100 Iraqi Christians, mostly Chaldean Catholics, following a class action lawsuit filed by the ACLU. Families, advocates, and experts have argued the deportations back to Iraq would be "like sending cattle to a slaughter”:
The Justice Department had argued that the detainees, including many who were recently rounded up after decades in the United States, must go to immigration court to try to remain in the country, not U.S. District Court. But the American Civil Liberties Union said they might be deported before an immigration judge can consider their requests to stay.
[U.S. District Judge Mark] Goldsmith heard arguments Wednesday. He said he needs more time to consider complex legal issues.
Potential physical harm “far outweighs any conceivable interest the government might have in the immediate enforcement of the removal orders before this court can clarify whether it has jurisdiction to grant relief to petitioners on the merits of their claims,” Goldsmith said.
“The court took a lifesaving action by blocking our clients from being immediately sent back to Iraq,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, in response to Judge Goldsmith’s decision. “They should have a chance to show that their lives are in jeopardy if forced to return.”
Detroit’s Iraqi community has been rallying for the release of the detainees, some of whom have spent decades in the U.S., others nearly their entire lives:
"My father has been here for almost 30 years. This is my home. This is his home, and this is his country," said 22 year old Rita Ghanam. Ghanam's father Sarmad Ghanam is one of the detainees now awaiting his fate in a prison cell in Youngstown, Ohio.
Ghanam says her father was taken from his home in front of her younger sister on Sunday.
"They're pulling him out and he said 'I just want to kiss my daughter. I might not see her again,' and they wouldn't even allow him to kiss her," said Ghanam.
Arrests that now appear to be politically motivated by a twice-failed Muslim ban:
While ICE raids are becoming increasingly common under President Donald Trump’s administration, the mass detention of Iraqi Christians is peculiar in that it appears to be wrapped up in politics surrounding the stalled Muslim Ban. Iraq was originally included as one of the seven Muslim-majority countries whose denizens were barred from entering the United States, but was cut from the second iteration of the ban. The change was a result of rapid-fire negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq earlier this year, which culminated with Iraq announcing they would take back Iraqi nationals living in the U.S. who are subject to final orders of removal.
This comes despite Donald Trump’s promise to protect Christian minorities from the Middle East:
Among the claims Mr. Trump made at his campaign rallies was that the Obama administration had denied refugee status to Christians, and had given preference to Muslims.
“How unfair is that? How bad is that?” he told supporters at a rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio, interlaced with boasts about his “tremendous evangelical support.”
“We are thankful and relieved that our clients will not be immediately sent to Iraq, where they face grave danger of persecution, torture or death. It would be unconstitutional and unconscionable to deport these individuals without giving them an opportunity to demonstrate the harm that awaits them in Iraq,” said Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan.