This post was written and reported by freelance contributor Dawn R. Wolfe through our new Daily Kos freelance program.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Trump administration agency in charge of ripping children from the arms of their parents, is apparently also willing to lie to the face of a federal judge. That's the substance of a new filing in an ongoing fight to free more than 100 Iraqis, many of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades, from the jails and ICE detention centers where they have been warehoused for over a year.
According to a motion for sanctions filed Wednesday in District Court in Michigan, John Schultz, deputy assistant director for ICE’s Asia and Europe Removal and International Operations Unit, and Michael Bernacke, ICE’s acting deputy assistant director in the same unit, were lying to the court when they claimed that the government of Iraq had agreed to wholesale repatriation of both the Iraqis being detained and a total of roughly 1,400 Iraqis that the administration also wants to deport.
The new claims were made in the case of Hamama v. Adduci, a lawsuit that alleges ICE is using coercion, including solitary confinement and threats of ongoing imprisonment, to force Iraqi detainees to leave the U.S. The plaintiffs claim coercion has also been used in attempts to convince the detainees to drop out of the lawsuit filed on their behalf. The suit was brought forward last year by the ACLU, CODE Legal Aid, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, the International Refugee Assistance Project, and the law firm of Miller Canfield.
The truth, according to the filing, is that Iraq has a long-standing policy against involuntary repatriations—and, government claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the Iraqi government has not agreed to take the Iraqi detainees back against their will. ICE has been so frustrated by the Iraqi government’s refusal, in fact, that last July it was seeking visa sanctions against the country. Despite continuing pressure, the Iraqi government has not changed its position.
“There's nothing more basic than being honest with the court. You have to tell the truth—that's what we expect when anybody goes to court, and certainly when the government goes to court,” said ACLU of Michigan staff attorney Miriam Aukerman. “It has taken us 14 months to pry this evidence from the government, and it has become very clear that the statements that they made to the court from July of last year on … mislead the court.”
Many of the Iraqis in detention are Christian or members of other minority groups who face further persecution in Iraq. They are among 1,400 detainees the Republican administration has targeted for deportation because of prior criminal convictions for crimes ranging from marijuana possession to assault.
According to Wednesday’s filing, ICE has resisted complying with court orders for information at every turn. Meanwhile, on Aug. 24, U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith determined that there was sufficient evidence that the coercion was still going on, despite his June ruling directing ICE to stop harassing the Iraqis.
In effect, Aukerman said, the agency is trying to force the Iraqi detainees to give up their rights.
In response to these abuses, Aukerman said her team is asking for three things. First, they want Judge Goldsmith to order ICE to release the Iraqis since they are being held under false pretenses. Next, the legal team is asking the court to make the evidence that ICE has presented in the case available to the public. Vast amounts of the evidence that the administration has presented to the plaintiffs is under a protection order. Protection orders are generally only used to guard sensitive information like an individual's Social Security number, but “they've basically designated everything they've given us as confidential,” Aukerman said.
“If a government agency tells untruths to the court, the public deserves to know what happened,” she said. “More importantly, the families and these individuals that have been separated now for more than a year—they deserve to know the truth.”
Finally, the plaintiffs are asking that ICE be required to strike the lies it has told from the record, both in Hamama and in cases throughout the country involving Iraqi detainees. Additionally, “we are asking the court to sanction the government for misrepresenting the facts,” Auckerman said.
Approximately 29 of the detained Iraqis are being held in the Calhoun County Jail in Battle Creek, Michigan. Nationwide, approximately 113 Iraqis are being held in jails or ICE detention facilities.
Aukerman said that the lies that ICE has told in the Hamama case are part of a pattern for the agency, “acting as if they are above the law and as if court orders and court rules don't apply to them.” That pattern includes deporting one detainee, Muneer Subaihani, on Aug. 8.
Judge Goldsmith's express order calls for a halt to all deportation proceedings until the Iraqis have the opportunity to appeal their cases.
“This is part of the way ICE operates,” Aukerman said. “As if court orders and court rules don't apply to them—even the basic requirement, when you go to court, of being honest and telling the truth. Apparently, they even think that doesn't apply to them.”
An ICE spokesperson declined to comment on the court filing “due to pending litigation.”
Dawn Wolfe is a freelance writer and journalist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. If you ‘d like to help support more stories like this through our freelance program, contribute here.