Christians Who Fled Iraq Fall Into Dragnet

[struggle4progress]

By VIVIAN YEE
JULY 4, 2017

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. — A few Sundays ago, federal immigration agents walked through the doors of handsome houses here in the Detroit suburbs, brushing past tearful children, stunned wives and statuettes of the Virgin Mary in search of men whose time was up.

If the Trump administration prevails, more than 100 of these men may soon be deported, like the tens of thousands of other people rounded up this year as part of a national clampdown on illegal immigration ...

They are Christians from Iraq — a land that they and their families fled decades ago because, they say, to live as a Christian in Iraq is no life at all, and sometimes means death. They settled in Detroit and its suburbs, accumulating into what may now be the largest population of Chaldean Christians in the world. They opened businesses, founded a dozen Chaldean Catholic churches and rose in numbers and wealth ...

“Christians in the Middle East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter in January, returning to a campaign-trail refrain that had captured Chaldean hearts and ballots across this stretch of Macomb and Oakland Counties. As the Chaldeans like to say, once with pride, now with fury, the area helped tip Michigan to Mr. Trump in November ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/us/iraqi-christians-deport.html

[Blue_true]

1. Sorry. They voted thinking someone else would suffer and they would be safe.

I grieve for the people that voted to protect all immigrants, LGBTQ people, Blacks from criminal system injustices, as well as for their key interests and are now in jail waiting to be deported or have lost rights under Trump.

[hrmjustin]

3. So because they are Christians you don't care?

Btwthey aren't citizens so they could not vote!

[Blue_true]

6. Nothing to do with Christian versus other. I have no idea how you extracted that.

Their relatives that could vote went for Trump. They have to fight their own battle. I have no sympathy for them.

[onecaliberal]

2. WHY would they think that lying pig would Spare them and the secretary some how wouldnt have.

[eleny]

4. You'd think they had refugee status

They're learning a bitter lesson. But with this publicity I imagine that something will be done to save them from that fate.

[MrScorpio]

5. This is practically around the corner from my house

By the way, a lot of these Chaldeans actually voted for Cheetolini. I've had some tell me that. Been known it for a while.

Now it's come back to bite them in their collective asses.

Needless to say, deportation for any of these people will be nothing less than a death sentence.

FDT.

[Blue_true]

7. They get what they voted for. nt

[eissa]

8. These are my people, and yet

I feel no sympathy. They cheered on as Mexicans and Muslims were attacked, thinking they were immune because "we're Christians!" They're learning a tough, but necessary, lesson.