Under President Donald Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been ramping up efforts to deport hundreds of Iraqi nationals whose legal status in the U.S. is in limbo.
But one Nashville man’s case shows how hard it is to send someone back after nearly 25 years in the U.S.
Muneer Subaihani recalls the day when authorities came to his apartment in Antioch.
He suspected the worst.
“Immigration knock my door,” he says. “Almost 5 o’clock in the morning.”
Subaihani says he kept his front door firmly shut, and after about 20 minutes, the ICE agents left.
But three days later, he says he received a foreboding letter in the mail. It asked him to report to an immigration office in downtown Nashville.
“They say, ‘You got meeting,’ ” he says. “Meeting for what? … Now I’m scared. I don’t want to do that.”
He had reason to be worried.
In 1994 he had entered the U.S. as a refugee and was even given a green card. But in 2004, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession. That prompted a judge to issue a deportation order.
It wasn’t enforced until the summer of 2017, when ICE rounded up nearly 300 Iraqis nationwide, including Subaihani.
After his arrest, he would spend most of the next year shuffling between detention centers.
Finally, he was presented with a piece of paper stating he was willing to go back to Iraq.
“And I sign. I get tired.”
No Guarantee Of Safety
There are about 1,400 Iraqis across the country with unenforced deportation orders. They include at least a half dozen refugees living in Nashville — like Muneer Subaihani.
Many have lived in the United States for decades, and the Iraqi government won’t guarantee their safety if they return.
“What ICE has done here to Muneer is what it’s trying to do hundreds of Iraqis,” says Miriam Aukerman, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, “which is deport them to a country that is extremely dangerous.”
Aukerman is leading a class-action suit that seeks to stop the deportations, which is pending in a federal court in Michigan. She argues ICE has crossed bright legal lines in its push to deport more Iraqis.
“ICE has really simply had an incredible disregard for court orders and has violated them right, left and center, and Muneer’s case is really the most extreme example,” she says.
A spokesman for ICE declined to be interviewed about that litigation. But in a written statement, the agency said allowing people like Subaihani to stay would put communities at risk and undermine immigration laws.
‘I’m Gone’
Court filings show what happened to Subaihani after he signed that paper: Without any sort of immigration hearing, ICE placed him unaccompanied onto a plane bound for Morocco with the goal of getting him to Iraq. His only identification was a one-way passport known as a laissez-passer.
Officials in Morocco were suspicious and detained him for six days. Subaihani says he wasn’t given any food or water. Finally they let him travel on to Bahrain and then Baghdad.
Once there, Subaihani found shelter with an ailing brother — the only home he could find after a quarter century away. With no papers showing he was an Iraqi citizen, Subaihani was afraid to leave home.
“I stayed in that house six months. I’m not going nowhere,” he says. “It’s not safe. People [are] crazy.
Back in the United States, friends of Subaihani were trying to figure out how to get him back. One of them was Mohammad Tamimi, who says he first met Subaihani in the early 1990s when they left Iraq to avoid military service.
“We are Iraqi people. When you have friends, you are like brother. I have to watch his back. If something is a problem to me, he has to watch my back.”
Eventually, the ACLU tracked Tamimi down and told him there was a chance Subaihani could return.
Tamimi was hopeful. Subaihani was not.
“I tell him, ‘No. I’m gone.’ ”
But Subaihani’s fortunes changed in the fall, when a federal judge determined ICE had erred by sending him away without an immigration hearing. The judge ordered ICE to take the unusual step of bringing him back.
So, in January, Subaihani traveled to the Baghdad airport with a ticket back to the United States. He
spoke to NPR before boarding the plane.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I like the United States best. Number one. … It’s safe over there.
A day later, Subaihani walked past security at the Nashville airport. Three friends, including Tamimi, were there to greet him.
Subaihani’s gait was wobbly and he’d lost about 40 pounds. His skin showed patches of discoloration. While overseas, Subaihani says he’d been unable to get his prescription for heart medication refilled.
Subaihani now hopes to get treated and to start work with a friend’s food truck business. But he can’t be sure his ordeal is over.
“Maybe they pick me up again. I’m not for sure,” he says.
“Maybe tomorrow.
“You never know.”
Caught between two countries — neither of which is eager to have him — Subaihani’s immigration status may remain in doubt for years.
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