Christian Post — Christian activists and families are warning that deporting hundreds of Chaldean Christians who’ve been arrested by immigration officials in Detroit and across the country could very well be a “death sentence” for them if they are forced to return to Iraq.
Immigration agents have defended their actions, however, insisting that the vast majority of those taken into custody over the weekend have in the past committed serious crimes, such as homicide, rape, aggravated assault, and kidnapping.
Pastor Jalil Dawood, the president of World Refugee Care, who fled Iraq as a refugee during the war with Iran in 1982 and started a new life in the U.S., told The Christian Post on Wednesday, “We can’t say these people went through genocide and send them back to be victimized again! We hope and pray that the issue gets resolved.”
Dawood continued, “America should never deport Christians to Iraq because they will be in trouble in Iraq as over a million left Iraq since 2003, and this will cause great hardship to their loved ones here,” also bringing “harm to them physically, mentally, and spiritually if they [are] ever sent back.”
“I understand that some might not have done their paperwork properly or [have] passed their datelines,” he added. “But deportation is [an] extreme measure toward peaceful people that just want to survive and do well in this society [and] love America as their new home.”
Others, such as Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who is a Chaldean Catholic of Assyrian and Armenian heritage, described the arrests as “deeply troubling.”
“Chaldeans have been targeted by ISIS and subjected to genocide, as have other religious minorities. Their deportation represents a death sentence should they be deported to Iraq or Syria,” Eshoo told Catholic News Agency.
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