Homeland Security Chief Hears Immigrant Concerns In Detroit

DETROIT, MI — Arab-Americans and Latinos from across Metro Detroit told Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly their concerns about profiling and other implications of President Trump’s immigration policies in meetings Monday, according to media reports. U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, a Bloomfield Township Democrat who is a member of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, accompanied Kelly on the visit to Detroit.

The Trump administration’s immigration policies have had a chilling effect in Metro Detroit, home of one of the largest and most diverse Arab-American communities in the United States. Numerous protests have erupted over travel bans and deportation threats.

In Detroit, the retired Marine general said that while he is committed to keeping the country safe from the “real threat” of terrorism, no one is targeted based on religion or ethnicity.

“Generally speaking, I think they were most interested in hearing from someone who has this job and makes no distinction between race, color, politics,” Kelly told reporters, including those from WWJ/CBS Detroit. “It’s all about protecting America.

“Regardless of what unfortunately gets reported sometimes, no one is targeted,” Kelly said. “Every single time a foreigner or an American citizen comes into this country — and there are millions every day — they generally move straight through the process. A very tiny number are set aside for additional screening. That’s not based on religion, color, politics and I reject anyone that makes that claim.”

Meetings with representatives of immigrant communities were closed to the media. Those attending them told the media that Kelly was polite, but the sessions were too brief for a meaningful discussion of the concerns and fears of Michigan’s immigrant communities.

After his morning arrival at Detroit Metro Airport, Kelly met with a group of immigrants, including leaders of the Chaldean Community Foundation who said the Trump administration should increase the number of Iraqi Catholics allowed refugee status. If they’re deported and sent back to Iraq, “it will amount to a death sentence,” Martin Manna, president of the Chaldean Community Foundation, told the Detroit Free Press.

“We talked about what we feel is a disparity in the amount of Christians being allowed to come from the Middle East,” Manna said. “There is a genocide against the Chaldean community by ISIS. There's been a slow down in the number of Christian refugees being allowed to come here.”

An exchange at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn reportedly became tense when Kelly was pressed on Trump’s revised travel ban, which one Arab-American leader said results in Muslims being intensely questioned at airports and border crossings. Like the first rollout, the second has been challenged in a flurry of lawsuits in Hawaii, Maryland and Washington state.

“He defended the questioning of people at the airports and the border,” Dr. Yahya Basa, a West Bloomfield physician, told the Free Press. He said “people have to be questioned, it’s not about religion.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have conducted a series of raids in Metro Detroit, including one last week in which about 50 Latinos were detained in an an illegal gambling and cockfighting raid in southwest Detroit in an area that is known locally as Mexicantown. Those detained in the raid are being held in Youngstown, Ohio, and their hearings will be held in Kansas City, Missouri, raising questions about whether they have adequate access to legal counsel.

“I pointed out the extreme chilling effect on access to counsel that distant detention and even more distant courts in third locations has and urged coordination in the event of future major enforcement actions to ensure local detention space or alternatives to detention were available,” Susan Reed of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center told the Free Press. “Secretary Kelly indicated very clearly that people would be detained wherever there was bed space available.”

Kelly’s visit also included a tour of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility at the Ambassador Bridge crossing into Canada.

Image: Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, right, talks with Christopher Perry, Director of Field Operations United States Customs and Border Protection, at the Ambassador Bridge border crossing in Detroit on Monday. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)