According to CNN, up to 40 Detroit immigrants—some Muslim, most of them Iraqi Christians—were swept up by ICE this past weekend and are facing imminent deportation. The Minority Humanitarian Foundation, “a group formed three years ago for victims of ISIS,” is planning a lawsuit to intervene, saying that some of the Christian immigrants have been living legally in the U.S. for decades and fear that a return to Iraq will be a death sentence. "Shame on Donald Trump," said Mark Arabo, the group’s president. "He campaigned on helping Christians, helping the underserved, on fighting ISIS when actually his actions are emboldening ISIS”:
Lundon Attisha, foundation communications director, said some of the people have been in the United States for more than 30 years.
"These are American citizens by all intents and purposes, They're not Iraqis. If they are put back to Iraq they face death, simple as that. A lot of individuals don't have families there anymore, they have no protection, their homes are likely run over by ISIS," Attisha said.
He said the group is working to raise awareness, intervene in whatever way possible, and contact elected officials "to see what we could do to ease this tension that's happening now.
According to local affiliate WDIV, some of the immigrants swept up by ICE were detained in front of their homes, with family members capturing the arrests on film. Heartbreaking footage from later in the day showed a large crowd protesting outside an ICE facility, with families weeping as an ICE bus carrying their family members pulled away for further processing.
While “many of the people detained on Sunday have prior convictions,” notes WDIV, some are misdemeanors that date back decades:
Families members said their loved ones arrived to the country legally. Some are married to U.S. citizens and have American-born children.
"We are trying to rebuild our lives," said one of the people whose family member was detained. "Why are you trying to punish people who made one mistake? Everyone makes mistakes."
It was just a few months ago during the signing of his first nativist Muslim ban that Trump promised to prioritize Christian minorities from the Middle East, and now here’s his deportation force rounding up the very same group of people he said he would protect:
In recent years, Christians been fleeing their homes in Baghdad and in Nineveh province, where Mosul is located.
The foundation said metro Detroit has the world's largest population of Chaldeans outside of Iraq with an estimated 121,000 people.
Many of those carried away in cuffs were Chaldeans, bewildering people who thought of themselves as Americans.
Arabo said sending these people back to Iraq is "like sending cattle to a slaughter."
Yes, these are Christian immigrants, but they’re also brown immigrants, and that trumps everything else when you’re campaigning to make American white again.
"I voted for Trump thinking he would protect ethnic minorities," said Shantal Hanna, whose husband now faces deportation. "Now it's blowing up in my face."
"There's a reason why we fled our country," said Zeinab Al-Badry, another woman whose husband was detained. "It's not to have fun in America, but to be safe."