Thread: ICE Arrests Dozens For Deportation During Immigration Sweeps In Metro Detroit

ICE Arrests Dozens For Deportation During Immigration Sweeps In Metro Detroit

June 11, 2017 6:18 PM

DETROIT (WWJ) – Dozens of Chaldeans and other Iraqis were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Sunday during sweeps which took place in Sterling Heights, West Bloomfield, and in Dearborn.

Nearly 40 people were taken into custody Sunday morning to be deported for crimes committed years ago.

An attorney for some of those arrested say that those being deported to Iraq fear for their lives.

Immigration attorney Eman Jajonie-Daman is representing about 25 of those arrested.

“There was a very wide ICE sweep of Iraqi Chaldeans and Christians living in the Metro area — and it started very early this morning about 7 a.m.,” said Jajonie-Daman. “They took them all into the ICE office in downtown Detroit and put them on buses to get them ready to go to Youngstown, Ohio to the Northeast Correctional Facility there for final deportation back to Iraq.”

Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean Community Foundation in Sterling Heights, says its “inhumane” to send Christians back to a country in which they’re going to be persecuted.

“The irony of this is that Congress just last week passed a resolution to declare genocide has been committed against Christians and other minorities in Iraq, and so here we are as a government sending them back to a country that has been persecuting this population.”

Today’s raids follow a week where hundreds were rounded up in Texas, Tennessee and California – including several Kurdish refugees.

Some of the families of those arrested Sunday protesting outside the Federal Building in Detroit.

WWJ Newsradio 950 has a call out to ICE for comment.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/06/...metro-detroit/

4/19/17

8 Iraqis deported on flight (Out of 1,444)

Unknown number of immigrants detained in mass Detroit-area deportation sweep



Friends and family distraught after a mass immigration and deportation sweep was conducted in Metro Detroit the morning of June 11, 2017. Several people said the sweep appeared to target members of the Iraqi Chaldean community who have a felony record and no citizenship.

By Gus Burns | fburns@mlive.com
on June 11, 2017 at 8:12 PM, updated June 11, 2017 at 9:49 PM

DETROIT, MI -- Portions of shackled men's faces flashed through the security bars on the windows of a white bus outside the U.S. Detention and Deportation Center in Detroit Sunday evening.

They shouted in English and foreign languages back and forth to loved ones and friends lining the black metal fence yards away.

"I love you," men could be heard yelling from the bus.

Some in the crowd of nearly 100 that had amassed out of protest and concern wept along the fence. Others reacted with anger.

According to several in the crowd, the sweep appeared to target mostly Iraqi immigrants from the Chaldean community in Detroit's northern suburbs, including Warren and Sterling Heights, who had felony convictions.

There were also Mexican and Muslim immigrants among the deportees.

Protesters guessed as many as 80 people were picked up in the sweep, but Khaalid H. Walls, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Detroit wouldn't release details Sunday.

Deportation Sweep In Metro Detroit


"ICE regularly conducts targeted enforcement operations during which additional resources and personnel are dedicated to apprehending removable aliens," he said in an email to MLive. "All enforcement activities are conducted with the same level of professionalism and respect that ICE officers exhibit every day.

"The focus of these targeted enforcement operations is consistent with the routine, targeted arrests carried out by ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams on a daily basis. ICE will not confirm an operation prior to its completion, nor will ICE speculate on future operational activities."

At least two buses were seen taking immigrants from the deportation center along the Detroit River Sunday.

Water bottles littered the fence line where protesters, family and friends had waited most of the day for information about what would happen with the deportees. Detroit police were on scene but said they had no information about how many people were detained or where the buses were headed.

Among the deportees were Maher Hanna, a married 40-year-old from Sterling Heights with a year-old daughter and a second daughter expected within the month, according to his sister, who asked that her name not be published.

She said her brother served three years in prison after being caught with marijuana nearly 20 years ago.

According to Macomb County Circuit Court records, Hanna pleaded guilty to marijuana possession with intent to distribute in 2000, for which he was sentenced to 11 months in the Macomb County Jail.

He was charged with second-offense possession of a controlled substance, felony firearm, misdemeanor maintaining a drug house, receiving or concealing firearms and possession of a firearm by a felon in 2004. He pleaded guilty to felony firearm and the other counts were dismissed as part of a deal with prosecutors. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
Hanna's sister, who lives in West Bloomfield, said federal agents came to her brother's home about 8 a.m. Sunday while he, his wife and daughter were sleeping. They told him they needed to take him for fingerprinting and he would be returned home shortly, but he never came back.

Some expressed concern that the Iraqi expatriates would be harmed upon their return.

"All of us ran from Iraq because there were wars and we had no freedom," said U.S.-born, 22-year-old Salvin Maroof of Sterling Heights, whose Chaldean family immigrated from Iraq. "We came to this country for freedom."

Maroof said he and others in the Chaldean community voted for President Donald Trump at the urging of their church leaders.

"Hell yeah I regret it," he said Sunday.

President Donald Trump in an executive order issued in January outlined his intent to step up deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally who have prior criminal records.

"Many of these aliens are criminals who have served time in our federal, state, and local jails," the executive order said. "The presence of such individuals in the United States, and the practices of foreign nations that refuse the repatriation of their nationals, are contrary to the national interest."

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...igrants_d.html

Should never bring these people here to begin with!

Stop bringing more here. They cause us so much money, crime, grief and problems!

And DO NOT bring those mentally ill refugees here and take them off Australia's hands...send them back to their countries.

After weekend raids, ICE prepares to deport as many as 300 Detroit-area Iraqis, mostly Christians

ICE targets some Nashville Kurds for deportation after U.S. deal with Iraq

Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean Community Foundation in Sterling Heights, says its “inhumane” to send Christians back to a country in which they’re going to be persecuted.

It's "inhumane" to be given the privilege to escape the violence in your homeland and given an all expense paid
trip to the United States and thanks us by committing crimes on the American people.

Someone's Christian religion should not be an excuse to be in the US in violation of US immigration law. Christian illegal aliens need to be deported as swiftly as Muslim illegal aliens, Buddhist illegal aliens, Hindu illegal aliens and atheist illegal aliens. ALL illegal aliens regardless of their age, language, how they came here, why they came here, who brought them, what age they were, or what they've done since they arrived is irrelevant. They all need to go back to their own countries.

Judge extends Iraqi deportation stay to July 24

The stay will expire this Monday evening at 11:59 p.m.

@ Ruling keeping Iraqi immigrants from deportation may expire