Judge halts deportation of 1,444 Iraqis

A federal judge in Detroit has temporarily halted the deportations of hundreds of Iraqis nationwide, who advocates say could face death, persecution and torture upon returning to their native country.

On Monday night, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith issued a stay of removal for about 1,444 Iraqis recently rounded up across the U.S., including about 85 who are in detention and were expected to be removed as early as Tuesday. These individuals will now have two more weeks to challenge their deportations.

The order comes days after Goldsmith halted the deportations of at least 114 Iraqis — most of them Chaldean Christians, an Iraqi denomination that emerged in the faith’s early days — in the Detroit area. Monday’s decision expands the order nationwide — against the government’s wishes — and affects potential deportees living in numerous states, including Tennessee and New Mexico.

“The substantiated alle- gations made here are that detainees face extraordinarily grave consequences: death, persecution, and torture. … Such harm far outweighs any interest the government may have in proceeding with the removals immediately,” Goldsmith said.

Immigration advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union sought the initial order on behalf of the Detroit-area Iraqis and followed up with a request over the weekend to expand the order across the United States.

The ACLU said a suspension is necessary so Iraqis can go to immigration court and argue that their lives would be in jeopardy if they returned to their native country. Without some intervention, the ACLU contends, people could be deported before their cases are called.

“They need enough time to file those petitions to reopen. It’s the government that is hurrying these people toward deportation,” Margo Schlanger, attorney for the Iraqi immigrants, told the judge.

The removal orders stem from raids earlier this month in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested dozens of Iraqis across the country. The arrests came as the agency processed a “backlog” of about 1,400 Iraqis the U.S. wanted to deport because they committed crimes.

The raids also followed a recent deal between Iraq and President Donald Trump’s administration. In an effort to remove itself from Trump’s travel ban, Iraq agreed to begin accepting Iraqis subject to removal from the U.S., even if they don’t have travel documents.

The ACLU filed the petition for Monday’s expanded order on behalf of “all Iraqi nationals in the United States with final orders of removal, who have been, or will be, arrested and detained by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] as a result of Iraq’s recent decision to issue travel documents to facilitate U.S. removal.”

The ACLU, immigration advocates and Iraqi community leaders in the Detroit area celebrated the move to temporarily protect the potential deportees.

“In its rush to deport as many immigrants as possible, [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is putting hundreds of individuals who have lived in this country for decades in grave danger of being persecuted or killed,” Michael Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan, said in a statement. “For many families across the United States, this ruling is like a stay in a death penalty case.”

Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said the court “did the right thing to ensure everyone is protected and has a chance to show that their lives are in jeopardy if forced to return.”