The seven-year legal battle protected many Iraqi nationals from family separation, needless detention, deportation, and possible torture or death.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DETROIT, Mich. – Today, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan approved the settlement agreement in the nationwide class action lawsuit, Hamama v. Adducci, on behalf of some 1400 Iraqis, many of whom U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had arrested without warning and threatened with immediate deportation. The settlement ensures that Iraqis will not be indefinitely detained. It also protects Iraqis with old removal orders from being arrested and held in detention simply because they seek to regularize their immigration status. The court will enter a signed order on the settlement in the coming days.
“We are proud that our work helped stop the needless detention and deportation of hundreds of people, who otherwise would have been separated from their families and sent to a country where they faced possible torture and death,” said Miriam Aukerman, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan. “Too often, immigrants are locked up for months or years for absolutely no reason other than they want what so many of us have already, the chance to build a life in America. The settlement will make it easier for them to do that.”
In 2017, the ACLU sued the federal government because ICE began arresting Iraqi nationals and intended to deport them immediately to Iraq. Most had been living in the United States for decades, but were previously ordered deported, either for technical immigration violations or for past convictions. Because the Iraqi government had long refused to issue travel documents for potential deportees, the United States has been unable to deport them. But in 2017, ICE arrested hundreds of Iraqis with old removal orders, hoping to deport them.
The ACLU argued that deporting Iraqis could result in possible harm including torture and death, and asked the court that they be allowed time to reopen their immigration cases based on the changed country conditions or legal developments in the decades since their cases were decided. The court granted this relief in 2017. However, because ICE continued to hold hundreds of Iraqis in detention, the ACLU returned to court and obtained orders in 2018 requiring that detention be individually assessed at a bond hearing, and requiring release of those detained longer than six months.
Although the federal government successfully appealed the courts’ rulings, the class action lawsuit enabled hundreds of Iraqis to be released from detention to be with their families while pursuing their immigration cases. Many have been granted asylum or legal residence, and some, like the lead plaintiff Sam Hamama, are now U.S. citizens.
“The uncertainty endured by hundreds of class members for over seven years has had devastating consequences,” said Mr. Hamama. “We believe the outlined terms of the settlement agreement provide a fair resolution and is a crucial step towards ensuring a just and humane immigration process. For me personally, the decisions from this case gave me the time to reopen my case in immigration court, become a US citizen, and remain here with my family.”
“We are grateful to have had the chance to fight on behalf of people who so often are ignored or senselessly demonized,” said Kimberly Scott, Miller Canfield principal and class counsel. “This case was always about ensuring that every person has their day in court as our constitution guarantees all people. This settlement agreement furthers that goal.”
The lawsuit, Hamama v. Adducci, was filed against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. attorney general in the U.S. District Court/Eastern Michigan District. In addition to the ACLU, the nationwide class-action lawsuit was brought by the law firm Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone, Professor Margo Schlanger, CODE Legal Aid, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, and International Refugee Assistance Project.
Read the settlement agreement here
Read the motion for approval of the settlement agreement here.
The Hamama v. Adducci case can be found here.
More information about the settlement can be found here.
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