July 25 • 2019 13
jn
Some focused concerns on the children at
the July 12 anti-ICE protest.
LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Fighting its way through a thicket of
legal challenges, the federal government
has restarted its program of deporting
vulnerable immigrants to Iraq. In April,
the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued
decisions that cleared the way for the
deportations to resume.
The target population consists of immi-
grants in this country with a “final order
of removal.” Many immigrants from Iraq
had become naturalized U.S. citizens.
Their children born here automatically
became citizens. Some immigrants,
though, who had gotten into trouble with
the law, could not gain citizenship and
so, in theory, they could be deported. In
practice, however, because successive
governments in Iraq refused to accept
any significant number of deportees,
Democratic and Republican admin-
istrations allowed them to remain in
the United States. Hundreds of people,
despite the threat of a “final order of
removal,” have been working, starting
businesses, paying taxes, raising families
and contributing to their communities.
As Rep. Andy Levin (D.-Mich.)
explains: “At one point, there were
approximately 15,000 Iraqi citizens
with standing deportation orders in
the United States. Most had been in
the United States for decades — the
deportation orders were from the ’
80s
Deportations
Resume
ICE targets Iraqi
immigrants with a “fi
nal
order of removal.”
SHEYNA WEXELBERG-CLOUSER
Protesters outside the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement office in the Rosa
Parks Federal Building in Detroit
continued on page 14
LOUIS FINKELMAN
have a long history of such failures,
we have always worked to rise above
and learn from them.
“What is happening now recalls
the internment of the Japanese
Americans in World War II, the
treatment of Native Americans and
our long legacy of racism.
“We have to be there for the
stranger; if we haven’
t learned that
from Jewish history, then what is the
point? What have we learned at all?
“
As Humanists,” he continued,
“we are committed to the diginity of
every single human being as much
as we are committed to the diginity
of our own. We must demand that
they — whoever they are — be treat-
ed the way we would want for our
own.”
Sheila Glass of Southfield attended
the rally as part of the Birmingham
Temple contingent.
“I was glad to be there because
I am outraged at the growing
acceptance of the way people are
being treated in this country,” she
said. “Treating people this way is not
supposed to happen in this democ-
racy. It is necessary to protest the
active dehumanization that is taking
place.”
Marc Sussman of Huntington
Woods, a member at Congregation
B’
nai Moshe in West Bloomfield,
said, “I was acutely aware that it was
erev Shabbat, and I was thinking of
the Torah commandment of how
we are to treat strangers because we
were strangers in the land of Egypt.
I was hoping to show our fellow
Americans that we object to the hor-
rors being committed in our name
— and we say, ‘
Not in our name.’
” ■
For a related opinion piece,
please see page 10.
MAGEN DAVID ADOM
Det
r
oi
t
Event
Thur
sday,
Oct
ober
24,
2019
27375
Bel
l
Road
•
Southfiel
d,
MI
48034
7:00
p.m.
Pr
ogr
am
and
Keynot
e
Speaker
Honoring
Sandy and Ji
m Dant
o
Co-Chairs:
Lori
and
Steven
Weisberg
Keynote
Speaker
Br
et St
ephens
Pul
itzer
Prize-winning
col
umnist
at
the
NY
Ti
mes
For
tickets
and
sponsorships,
pl
ease
contact
Sharon
Kobernik
at
888.674.4871
or
skobernik@afmda.org.
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