DETROIT (AP) — Lindsey Hamama has one gift on her Christmas list: to have her father home.
A federal judge in Detroit is mulling whether to release her father, Usama “Sam” Hamama, who was apprehended by immigration officials as part of a roundup in June, and hundreds of others whose deportations to Iraq were suspended but remain in custody.
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith, who will hear arguments Wednesday, blocked the deportation of 1,400 people in July to allow time to challenge their removal in immigration court. About 275 people are jailed or in detention centers in roughly two dozen states.
Government officials say the detainees — whose arrests came amid broader, aggressive immigration policies by the Trump administration — have committed crimes in the U.S. and must be deported now that Iraq will accept them. Advocates say the detainees — many of whom are Christians who fear being tortured or killed if deported — paid their debt to society and deserve to be with their families as their immigration cases wend through the system.
Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security said Iraq had agreed to start allowing the return of immigrants who have been ordered out of the United States. They were allowed to stay in the country under previous administrations.
“Basically, people have been in (custody) since early June, said Miriam Aukerman, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which represents the Iraqi nationals. “It’s been six months. For many of these individuals, they face many more months or years of incarceration for absolutely no reason: They were living in the community. They were reporting (to immigration officials) regularly.”