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.

afmda.org/detroi
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