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

Trump's move to deport Christians to Iraq stirs outcry

Many of the people detained in weekend raids were from Michigan, a swing state Trump barely won in 2016.

By NAHAL TOOSI
06/13/2017 05:06 PM EDT
Updated 06/13/2017 05:40 PM EDT

President Donald Trump is facing anger and potential political blowback as his administration ramps up efforts to deport Iraqi Christians, a group he’d pledged to protect from what the U.S. calls a genocide in the Middle East.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents over the weekend detained dozens of Iraqi Christians and others to send back to Iraq. Many of them were picked up in Michigan, a swing state that Trump barely won in 2016 and the home of a sizable number of Christians from Muslim-majority countries who backed Trump during the presidential campaign.

The deportation effort has alarmed lawmakers who have tried to raise awareness about the plight of Chaldean and other Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. Those communities have struggled to survive under the reign of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Removing the detainees from the United States “represents a death sentence should they be deported to Iraq or Syria,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who has family and religious links to the Middle East, said in a statement.

Christian activists are scrambling to file legal challenges to the deportations and coordinate with sympathetic lawmakers. As the news has spread, so has the feeling that Trump has betrayed the affected Christian community, activists said.

“He promised he would help us, when in fact he’s exacerbated problems now by sending people back to the hands of the Islamic State,” said Steve Oshana, an Assyrian-Christian activist with the group A Demand for Action.

The crackdown is believed to be a result of disputes stemming from Trump’s executive orders that ban visitors and immigrants from several Muslim majority countries.

Initially, the so-called travel ban, which has been put on hold by the courts, included Iraq. But Iraq is reported to have gotten off the list by promising to accept people the U.S. wants deported. That means many Iraqis living in the U.S. who previously could not be deported for overstaying their visas, committing crimes, or other reasons can now be sent back.

Many of those detained had been checking in regularly with U.S. authorities for years as part of the conditions of their being allowed to stay in the United States, so immigration agents knew where to find them. There also were reports that some were detained while they were on their way to church Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said it was just doing its job by pursuing the deportations, which had contributed to a backlog of cases. It did not release specifics on how many people were detained or where, but activists said at least 40 people were held, and that southeastern Michigan was the main focus of the weekend raids.

“The agency recently arrested a number of Iraqi nationals, all of whom had criminal convictions for crimes including homicide, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, burglary, drug trafficking, robbery, sex assault, weapons violations and other offenses,” DHS spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. “Each of these individuals received full and fair immigration proceedings, after which a federal immigration judge found them ineligible for any form of relief under U.S. law and ordered them removed.”

But Christian activists said many of the detainees had committed lower-level offenses, and that even those who had committed serious crimes had already been punished by the U.S. legal system, often many years before. Some of the detainees are believed to have grown up in the United States and can barely speak Arabic.

Nathan Kalasho, an Iraqi-American Christian activist in Michigan, said his group had been approached by a desperate 38-year-old woman of Iraqi Christian descent whose uncle has been serving as her bone marrow donor. He has been detained and is slated for deportation.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump captured the hearts of many Americans of Middle Eastern Christian descent through his tough anti-Islamist talk. Activists familiar with the community said many in it voted for Trump because they were convinced he would stop the decimation of their people in the Middle East.

Trump’s administration has kept up the pro-Christian, anti-Islamist rhetoric. Just last week, Vice President Mike Pence denounced the “genocide” being committed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in regions where Christians have long lived.

“Christianity faces unprecedented threats in the land where it was given birth and an exodus unrivaled since the days of Moses,” Pence said during the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.

The U.S. formally declared that the Islamic State was committing genocide against Christians and other groups last year under the Obama administration.

Trump’s efforts to impose a travel ban contributed to unease among Christians in the U.S. who trace their lineage to the Middle East.

Even though the first attempt at the ban included references to giving admissions preference to religious minorities from the Middle East, the ban also halted the entry of refugees to the United States. Many refugees from the region are Christians.

But although the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up deportations of people illegally in the United States, few Christians from Iraq and other parts of the Middle East expected raids aimed at them.

“The support came from a fear in these communities,” said Philippe Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians. “These are people that are deeply traumatized. They latched onto his message of ‘We’re going to protect you.’”

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/0...stians-239511/

Judge puts hold on deportation of 114 Michigan Iraqis arrested by ICE

WHEN IS THE SAFE ZONE GOING TO BE PUT IN PLACE?

TRUMP PROMISED

Deport them all and get it done.

Your religion does not give you a FREE pass to come illegally and break our laws.

They all lie...get them out.

Ex-Chaldean crime boss Akrawi faces deportation as part of ICE raids in Detroit