I fell asleep for a couple of hours. I had a long day, working on different projects concerning the genocide in Iraq and Syria against non-Muslims such as Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs and Yazidis. Lars Adaktusson, a Swedish member of the European Parliament, has initiated an international conference in Brussels, and it’s coming together pretty well ― a lot of media has shown interest, and so have many European governments. Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, is nearly rid of the ISIS terrorists. In Syria the so-called Islamic State’s capital Raqqa is also about to be liberated. Many things are moving, and as my eyelids began to shut down for the day, I begin to wonder what all of this means for the indigenous people of those countries.
Wisam Naoum, Nathan Kalasho, Dylan Kalasho, Nadine Kalasho, Nancy Benjamin and Eman Kattola in makeshift detainee assistance team working to document detainees and assist families
A couple of hours later I opened them up again and woke up to messages on Facebook, Twitter and texts to my cell phone, all saying the same thing: “call Nathan in Detroit, it’s nuts, ICE is arresting people randomly.”
Nathan Kalasho is one of the founders of A Demand For Action, the NGO I am part of. He is also the director of KEYS Grace Academy Charter School, where many students are refugees from the Middle East and the majority are of Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac descent. I texted our executive director in Washington, D.C., Steve Oshana, and asked him what ICE is. I didn’t want to sound stupid when I was discussing the arrests with other people. “Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” he informed me. I read on the authorities homepage to learn more.
Then I started to read Facebook and Twitter posts. I saw that lawyers like Wisam Naoum were getting involved. On one of the posts where he was tagged, there was a video from when the people that were detained were moved from one prison to another, people screaming – from the other side of the fence - to their loved ones, “don’t sign any documents, whatever you do, don’t sign that you recognize the deportation.” Others were screaming “we voted for President Trump, this must be a mistake.” One person shouted from a bus inside the fence, “please contact my family,” and then he told what their names were and where to find them. People outside replied promising him to do so.
Most posts on social media were encouraging people to look for an attorney that could help them. ”Sick to my stomach. God bless all of the families that have had a member/friend randomly arrested and sent out for deportation. This is insane and unjust ― Iraq is NOT safe for anyone. Please follow Wisam Naoum for any updates and suggestions on what we can do to help.”
KEYS was open around the clock, Wisam Naoum, Nathan Kalasho and other activists were trying their best to assist families in any way they could. I called Naoum to get a grip of the situation. Some people that I know said that all the detained people are criminals and should be deported, that it’s nothing else than fair. Others claimed it’s illegal actions. I asked him what his thoughts were about those statements:
“You would not believe what we are experiencing here. Many of the folks that were detained have been in U.S. for decades, one probably more than forty years. It’s true that most have a track record of criminality, but often they’re non-violent crimes from years go and they’ve paid their debt to society. Many convictions are as simple as marijuana possession, a drug that is legal medically in Michigan and fully legal elsewhere. Others have no criminal records. Some are just refugees that missed meetings or filled something out incorrectly.”
On one of my Facebook friends, Ashur Shiba, who lives in Chicago, thinks his city will be next and posted:
”To all *Suraye living in Chicago and throughout the United States. If you are not a citizen, or have legal documentations to stay please contact an immigration attorney at once. Criminal record or not, in the eyes of the law you are an illegal and subject to American laws. If you need helping finding an attorney please contact me personally immediately. Those of you reading this, who have family and friends that you know don’t have the paper work, please advise them asap.”
It never ends, the persecution of the people whose ethnicity I was born to. It just never ends. President Obama backed the so-called Syrian opposition that turned out being terrorists persecuting Christians. President Trump convinced many of my people in the U.S. that he would be working against the genocide in Iraq and Syria. He had them travel all around the country to help him with his campaign, making them believe that he was their savior. And what did he do? He closed a big deal with Saudi Arabia, which for over a decade has financed terrorists that have driven non-Muslims out of their homelands. Yesterday the deportation began of people that Trump calls “illegal aliens,” people who have been living in the country for over 20 years. The authorities began with raids against hairdressing salons, restaurants, church parking lots, and households in Detroit where the majority of the Christians from the Middle East are Chaldean Catholics.
This reminds me of when Susan Ritzen, a colleague at the Swedish Radio (Public Service), investigated a dozen cases of Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs who were forcibly deported back to Iraq by the Swedish authorities. One day I just had it. I decided to become an activist instead of a journalist, to hide asylum seekers from getting deported and to help them with their applications and with their appeals to the European Court ― three thousand Christian Iraqis were affected, and they were all rejected.
Ritzen and I revealed that Sweden secretly made a deal with the Iraqi government to force members of vulnerable Iraqi indigenous people on planes to Bagdad. A deal that according to the Iraqi minister of migration was a misunderstanding and invalid, so he said in a phone call to me. The government of 2009 claimed it had been tricked by Swedes, that they interpreted the contract differently. The minister said that his government could not promise protection for those that were forcibly sent back.
Trump’s government has now also signed an agreement with Iraq, I wonder what the Iraqi government of today has to say about the interpretation. And will they be able to protect the people that are sent back? During an ongoing genocide that is recognized by the U.S. Congress among other parliaments, I wonder if they even can.
There were at least 1.3 million Christian Iraqis before Saddam’s fall. Today, not even 300,000 are left. They are on the run, all over the world. Family by family is now scattered, now the U.S. authorities are splitting more families.
*Suraye” means Assyrians, Chaldeans or Syriacs in Aramaic, their own language.
*Izla Chabe from Sweden and Linda Michael from Germany also contributed to this report.