Congressman Jim Cooper says he’s worried about the safety of immigrants deported back to Iraq and wants officials from that country to intervene to ensure they won’t be harmed by extremists.
The Nashville Democrat is asking Iraq’s government to slow down the issuance of travel documents so potential deportees’ immigration cases can be heard. He says they aren’t being given due process or access to lawyer, and they’re being told falsely that appealing their detention would speed up their deportation.
“It is vitally important to determine if the dangers they could face abroad entitle them to at least temporary protection from removal,” Cooper writes in a letter sent Thursday to Iraq’s ambassador to the United States.
Cooper says he’s particularly concerned U.S. immigration officials are moving too fast to consider the wellbeing of Chaldean Christians and ethnic Kurds facing deportation. Members of both groups have been arrested in recent weeks in Detroit and Nashville by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The sweeps stem from a deal between Washington and Baghdad. Iraqi officials agreed to accept deportees in exchange for being left out of the second version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban. For several years previously, Iraq had refused deportees on the ground that they wouldn’t be safe if they returned.
In his letter, Cooper asks if there’s anything Iraq can still do — from moving slowly to provide travel papers to arranging flights directly back to places in Iraq where they’ll be safer.
About a dozen Kurds from Middle Tennessee are believed to face deportation, some for offenses committed more than a decade ago.
They’re currently being held in Louisiana.
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