An Iraqi immigrant lost his fight against deportation as US Supreme Court upheld his deportation order following drug convictions.
Amir Shabo, a Christian Iraqi, will be removed from the United States as the Supreme Court on Monday rejected his appeal against deportation.
51-year-old Shabo was one of the hundreds of Iraqi immigrants who were cracked down in 2017 for previous criminal convictions. He was detained and given deportation order as President Trump intensified immigration enforcement, but the father of two appealed the lower court ruling stating he would be tortured if sent back to his home country.
Drug Convictions
Shabo came to the US in 1985, about three decades ago, after leaving his home country with his family and became a legal permanent resident in the US.
In 1992, he was convicted of cocaine possession and served five years jail term. Facing deportation to his home country, Shabo argued he would be prosecuted for his faith in a country that is predominantly Muslim. He also stated his refusal to fight for President Saddam Hussein’s government in 1989 as a problem that would see him tortured.
Shabo's criminal conviction meant his deportation was inevitable according to immigration officials. However, he was allowed to remain in the US since Iraqi was not issuing travel documents at the time.
The case was reopened in 2017 as Iraqi accepted to receive its nationals deported from the US in a bid to get off the list of Muslim countries given travel ban by Trump.
Shabo reopened the case as he feared deportation stating that he would be tortured the Islamic State militant group in Iraq, but he lost his appeal with the US court stating that it has no jurisdiction under immigration law to review Board of Immigration Appeals decision.
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