US

Liberals Flip Out Over Iraqi Christian Deportations, Overlook Policy Change

Reuters

Scott Greer Contributor
Font Size:

The Trump administration is set to deport over 100 Iraqi Chaldean Christians Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested in Detroit last weekend.

According to ICE, all of the Iraqi nationals detained had hard criminal convictions for such offenses as murder, rape and drug trafficking. They all been ordered deported by an immigration judge, who had ruled the criminal aliens were “ineligible for any form of relief under U.S. law,” CBS reported.

This move has enraged Democrats and left-wing journalists for amounting to a “death sentence” for the deportees, as well as a hypocritical move for a White House that pledged to protect Middle Eastern Christians.

For instance, Vox’s report on the planned deportation featured numerous quotes from local activists and members of the community saying that all the deportees will die if they are sent back to Iraq.

Additionally, Vox’s article condescendingly dismissed ICE’s claims that the deportees were being sent back to their home country due to serious criminal defenses as “just following orders.”

Furthermore, the liberal publication pointed out that these individuals, while eligible for deportation before the Trump administration, were allowed to stay in the country. Similarly, California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo argued that these Iraqi Christians had already paid their debt to society with their time served and they don’t warrant an “unjust” deportation.

What’s buried in the article is the reason these Iraqi national are now facing deportation: their native country is now willing to take them back. In the past, Iraq refused to take those who had been convicted of a crime in the U.S.

According to the Immigration Law Reform Institute, Iraq had refused to accept 160 criminals from the U.S. during the time period of October 1, 2012 to June 30, 2016.

But the Trump administration struck a deal with the Iraqi government earlier this year for the Middle Eastern state to take in criminal deportees in order to get off the list of countries subject to the White House’s travel ban.

While liberals may see it as hypocritical for Trump to deport Middle Eastern Christians, the president has made getting rid of criminal immigrants from America a priority of his administration. Considering that all of the Iraqi Christians slated for deportation are convicted of serious crimes, according to ICE, the move would not seem inconsistent with Trump’s promises.

The White House and Republicans in Congress have been pushing for more countries to receive criminal deportees from the U.S. As of last month, there are at least 12 countries that refuse to take foreign nationals convicted of crimes in America. That number has fallen significantly thanks to the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure foreign countries to take deportees, according to The Washington Times.

The argument that deportation will amount to a death sentence for criminal aliens has also been applied to countries outside the Middle East by those on the Left. For instance, in 2015, The Guardian ran an article claiming “US government deporting Central American migrants to their deaths,” leaving the reader with the impression the government should not deport illegal aliens from Central America — no matter the reason.