Deportation or not - Iraqi family awaits word this week

Sunday, July 8, 2007 | 7:07 a.m.

Dallal Muhamed has her roses, at least.

She clips the fallen blooms, yellow and orange, in her Mountain's Edge back yard.

She stops thinking for a while. She tires and rests.

When she wakes, it's back to the stomach-churning wait for Wednesday, a day she might learn whether the federal government plans to send her family of three back to Iraq, 14 years after she escaped.

Her scheduled interview with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the latest event in her limbo of a life after a political asylum application, an appeal to a lower court and a second appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals all failed during her six years on American soil.

If the federal government deports Muhamed, her son and her daughter to Iraq, the decision would be uncommon. Through April only five people were deported to Iraq. Only 38 have been deported there in the past three fiscal years.

Critics call the idea inhumane, while acknowledging that not deporting Iraqis without permission to stay in the U.S. would be an admission that the war has not led to a stable country. Federal officials say they have no policy on the issue and deal with each case on its merits.

Muhamed's case is particularly compelling because she says she fled Iraq in 1993 after being raped by thugs tied to one of Saddam Hussein's sons, a practice experts have noted was common at the time.

She wound up obtaining political asylum in Germany, but fled that country in 2001 when , she says, she began receiving threats from Iraq. Federal authorities here have refused her family asylum because, they say, countries must share the burden of offering such protection.

Her life in Las Vegas has been somewhat archetypical, with Muhamed dealing cards at the Orleans on the night shift while dabbling in real estate by day. Her daughter, Dalyia, is a junior at UNLV's School of Hotel Management and is completing an internship at the Venetian. Her son, Mustafa, works in real estate.

Muhamed's case has gained news media attention since the 9th Circuit rejected her appeal in April.

After the Sun wrote about her case in May, CNN picked up the story, as have many blogs devoted to the war.

Her attorney, Jeremiah Wolf Stuchiner, thinks the interview has been scheduled because of the notoriety, and hopes behind-the-scenes efforts by Sen. Harry Reid's staff bear fruit.

Those efforts aim to persuade authorities to offer an order of supervision, which would let Muhamed and her family stay in the U.S. while regularly reporting to immigration officials - until conditions in Iraq change.

"This is a difficult case with a very unique set of circumstances," said Blair Hinderliter, a staffer for Reid.

"Sen. Reid is doing everything he can to ensure that this case is treated fairly and to help Dallal Muhamed work through this difficult process."

Stuchiner pointed to another wrinkle in his client's case. She lost her Iraqi identification between Germany and the U.S., and the Iraqi Embassy in Washington told her this spring that it cannot issue her a passport without such documents.

Without a passport, Stuchiner said, the U.S. government cannot deport her .

Meanwhile, Muhamed tries with difficulty to keep her children's spirit from flagging.

"They're afraid of this appointment, but I can do nothing for them - I'm afraid, too," she said.

For Muhamed, avoiding the interview is not an option.

"There are people who are hiding from the INS, but I can't," she said. "I have to face the things, good or bad."

Seeing herself on national television recently released welled feelings.

Sitting alone in the house, while her son and daughter were at work, she looked at the screen and saw her back yard, those roses.

"I saw my troubles in front of my eyes ... and cried for myself and my kids."