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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsICE Deported a Man to a Place He'd Never Lived. Now He's Dead
Jimmy Aldaoud lived most of his life in America. Born a refugee in Greece, he came to the United States as a child. He was a member of the Chaldean Catholic minority, many of whose members fled Iraq following the second U.S. invasion. He did not speak Arabic and had never been to Iraq. But when he encountered legal issues in the United States, which his lawyer attributed to his his mental health issues including paranoid schizophrenia, he was deported to Iraq by the Trump Administration.
Now Aldaoud is dead, according to a Facebook post by his lawyer, who said he likely died because he could not obtain insulin in Iraq to treat his diabetes.
Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) commented on Aldaouds death in a written statement to Politico, saying Jimmy Aldaoud
should have never been sent to Iraq. My Republican colleagues and I have repeatedly called on the executive branch to cease deportation of such vulnerable people. Now, someone has died.
Democratic presidential candidate and Washington governor Jay Inslee shared a video of Aldaoud shortly after he was deported. Jimmy Aldaoud spent most of his life in the US. He died after being deported to Iraq, where he was homeless and could not speak Arabic or get insulin. The Trump administration did not just deport Jimmy they handed him a death sentence, Inslee said.
Link to tweet
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/ice-deported-man-to-a-place-he-never-lived-now-he-is-dead-869327/
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,505 posts)or any other reason to deport him.
JI7
(89,239 posts)dalton99a
(81,385 posts)Last edited Thu Aug 8, 2019, 10:08 PM - Edit history (1)
Aldaoud faced serious health problems, Bajoka said. In addition to diabetes, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and struggled to live a normal life. His run-ins with the law were primarily due to his mental illness, said Bajoka, who never represented Aldaoud in court. The most serious came in 2012 when Aldaoud, described as homeless in local media reports, broke into a garage and stole power tools. He served 17 months on that home invasion conviction, Politico reported, and had a separate conviction for disorderly conduct.
He wasnt a U.S. citizen, so those criminal convictions made him eligible to be deported. For decades, Iraq had refused to accept deportations from the United States but that all changed in June 2017. As part of a deal to escape President Trumps travel ban against a host of majority-Muslim nations, Reuters reported, Iraq agreed to accept deportees. More than 100 Iraqis with criminal records were arrested that month by ICE, mostly in Detroit.
Aldaoud was among those picked up and eventually taken to a federal detention center in Youngstown, Ohio, according to federal court records.
https://www.pressherald.com/2019/08/08/a-detroit-diabetic-was-deported-to-iraq-where-hed-never-lived-he-died-from-lack-of-insulin/
Arkansas Granny
(31,505 posts)Ms. Toad
(33,989 posts)We have a long and sordid history of horrendous immigration policies, including deporting people who have lived their entire lives in the US to countries where they know no one, don't know the language, and have never lived. Sometimes to tragic ends.
https://www.ohio.com/article/20140527/NEWS/305279172
https://www.thedailybeast.com/report-60-immigrants-killed-after-being-deported-despite-warnings-to-us-officials-2
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/when-deportation-is-a-death-sentence?irclickid=QNqU3tUITxyJWUSwUx0Mo3c3UklVW%3ATm23nG2k0&irgwc=1&source=affiliate_impactpmx_12f6tote_desktop_Viglink%20Primary&utm_source=impact-affiliate&utm_medium=27795&utm_campaign=impact&utm_content=Online%20Tracking%20Link&utm_brand=tny