A federal judge in Detroit rules that Iraqi nationals, who the U-S government wants to deport, must be set free. They’ve been held for more than a year.
The government has tried to deport more than 14-hundred Iraqi nationals, mostly Christian Chaldeans who the government says are in the country illegally. Most committed crimes years ago, and did not report to immigration authorities or disclose their backgrounds, in their efforts to stay in the U-S. At least 114 of these people were living in the Detroit area when they were rounded up by ICE in 2016.
Organizations came forward to fight the government’s deportation efforts and they went to court to stop the deportations.
U-S District Judge Mark Goldsmith today ordered that the detainees be freed, and kept under supervision.
Goldsmith says the U-S government failed numerous court orders to produce evidence and materials showing that the detainees should be thrown out and that the government of Iraq would accept them if they were deported back to Iraq.
Goldsmith concludes that Iraq will not take in the detainees, and that they would have to stay incarcerated indefinitely because they have nowhere to go.
Judge Goldsmith’s 59 page ruling comes after more than a year of court hearings and arguments.
Goldsmith’s ruling can be appealed to a higher court.
If so, his ruling could be blocked.
But for now, Iraqi detainees that the government tried to deported are ordered to be set free, but with supervision.
The judge quotes a Supreme Court decision that says in our society, liberty is the norm.