A federal judge in Detroit will consider whether to put a temporary national halt on the deportation of Iraqi nationals recently rounded up by U.S. authorities.
Judge Mark Goldsmith will hold a hearing Monday on the request by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU wants to expand its case beyond the roughly 114 detainees arrested in the Detroit area. It says there could be more than 1,000 detainees nationwide.
Goldsmith signed a 14-day freeze Thursday. He said he needed time to determine if he has jurisdiction.
The detainees fear they could be persecuted in Iraq, which has agreed to accept them. They want to suspend the deportations so they can further argue that their removal would be dangerous.
The U.S. government says they’re being deported because they committed crimes.
(AP)
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2 Responses
Most of them are Christians accused of minor crimes. They will be subject to severe persecution when deported to Iraq unless the convert to Islam. They probably should be granted pardons or allowed to move to different countries.
Smells wrong. The bureaucracy has taken over and made its own decisions as to what exactly Trump’s directive to deport criminals means. Out of 1400 Iraqis some 300 are Christian Chaldeans who are already designated by Congress as targets of attempted genocide by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq. As such, I don’t see how a judge could possibly overlook a Congressional determination.