Chaldean Patriarch protests at US plan to deport Iraqi Christian refugees

Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako

The United States is currently preparing to deport 114 Iraqi Chaldean Christian refugees, including families with young children, who live and work in the US. These people were arrested under new measures being enforced by the Trump administration designed to stop migration from Middle Eastern countries, considered at risk of terrorist infiltration.

In a letter sent to Chaldean Bishop Frank Kalabat, who heads the Eparchy of St Thomas the Apostle in Detroit, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako expresses solidarity and closeness to Iraqi families affected by expulsion orders, and hopes that the US government will find adequate solutions to the humanitarian emergency caused by the expulsion measures.

The Patriarch notes that many of the Iraqi refugees have lived in the US for a long time, and cannot be suspected of representing a danger to US national security.

The Iraqi Chaldean Christians now under threat of deportation were arrested in Detroit by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policemen on 12 June. Most of them are men who have lived in the United States for decades.

The operation follows the agreement between the United States and Iraq, withwhich the government of Baghdad agreed to host a number of Iraqi citizens subjected to the expulsion measure, in order to be be removed from the blacklist of nations affected by the so-called 'Muslim ban' - the ban President Donald Trump wanted to prevent access to the US regarding citizens from six countries with a Muslim majority considered as potential "exporters" of terrorists.

On Thursday, June 22, district court judge Mark Goldsmith suspended the expulsion proceedings for 14 days, during which he will have to decide whether his court has jurisdiction to rule on the whole affair.

The USCCB has also protested over the plan. See: ICN 20 June 2017 - US Bishops urge authorities not to deport Christian refugees fleeing persecution www.indcatholicnews.com/news/32843