DETROIT: A judge on Thursday temporarily halted the deportation of more than 100 Iraqi Christians living in the Detroit area who fear torture and possible death if sent back to Iraq.
US District Judge Mark Goldsmith said in a written order that deportation is halted for 14 days while he decides if his court has jurisdiction to hear their plight.
The Justice Department had argued that the detainees, including many who were recently rounded up after decades in the US, must go to immigration court to try to remain in the US, not US District Court. But the American Civil Liberties Union said they might be deported before an immigration judge can consider their requests to stay.
Goldsmith heard arguments Wednesday. He said he needs more time to consider complex legal issues.
Potential physical harm “far outweighs any conceivable interest the government might have in the immediate enforcement of the removal orders before this court can clarify whether it has jurisdiction to grant relief to petitioners on the merits of their claims,” Goldsmith said.
Most of the 114 Iraqis are Chaldean Christians, but some are Shiite Muslims and converts to Christianity. They were arrested on or about June 11 and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said all have criminal convictions.
Iraq recently agreed to accept Iraqi nationals subject to removal from the US.
“The court took a life-saving action by blocking our clients from being immediately sent back to Iraq,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a release. “They should have a chance to show that their lives are in jeopardy if forced to return.”
Besides the 114 arrested in the Detroit area, 85 other Iraqi nationals were arrested elsewhere in the country, according to ICE. As of April 17, there were 1,444 Iraqi nationals with final orders of removal from the US Eight already have been returned to Iraq.
The detainees include Louis Akrawi, who served more than 20 years in Michigan prisons for second-degree murder. He was accused of arranging a shooting that killed an innocent bystander in 1993.
“He’s 69 years old, he has two artificial knees, and he needs surgery on both eyes. Sending him back to Iraq is unfair,” his son, Victor Akrawi, told The Detroit News.
Detroit judge halts deportation of Iraqi Christians
Detroit judge halts deportation of Iraqi Christians
Al-Shabab extremists are greatest threat to peace in Somalia and the region, UN experts say
- The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend authorization for the African Union’s “support and stabilization” force in Somalia until Dec. 31, 2026
UNITED NATIONS: The Al-Shabab extremist group remains the greatest immediate threat to peace and stability in Somalia and the region, especially Kenya, UN experts said in a report released Wednesday.
Despite ongoing efforts by Somali and international forces to curb operations by Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab, “the group’s ability to carry out complex, asymmetric attacks in Somalia remains undiminished,” the experts said.
They said the threat comes not only from Al-Shabab’s ability to strike — including within the capital, Mogadishu, where it attempted to assassinate the president on March 18 — but from its sophisticated extortion operations, forced recruitment and effective propaganda machine.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to extend authorization for the African Union’s “support and stabilization” force in Somalia until Dec. 31, 2026. The force includes 11,826 uniformed personnel, including 680 police.
The extremist group poses a significant threat to neighboring Kenya “by conducting attacks that vary from attacks with improvised explosive devices, which predominantly target security personnel, to attacks on infrastructure, kidnappings, home raids and stealing of livestock,” the experts said.
This year, Al-Shabab averaged around six attacks a month in Kenya, mostly in Mandera and Lamu counties, which border Somalia in the northeast, the panel said.
The experts said Al-Shabab’s goal remains to remove Somalia’s government, “rid the country of foreign forces and establish a Greater Somalia, joining all ethnic Somalis across east Africa under strict Islamic rule.”
The panel of experts also investigated the Islamic State’s operations in Somalia and reported that fighters were recruited from around the world to join the extremist group, the majority from east Africa. At the end of 2024, they said the group known as ISIL-Somalia had a fighting force of over 1,000, at least 60 percent of them foreign fighters.
“Although small in terms of numbers and financial resources compared with Al-Shabab, the group’s expansion constituted a significant threat to peace and security in Somalia and the broader region,” the panel said.
