Iraqi family can stay, but with strings

Timothy Pratt, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, July 13, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

Dallal Muhamed made at least one mistake per hour dealing cards at the Orleans on Wednesday night.

Her muscles were tight and her mind was absent.

It had been 12 hours since she and her son and daughter met with a federal official who they thought might put them in handcuffs and on a plane to Iraq.

Instead, he laid out dozens of pages on a table, some in Arabic.

They signed them all and now are allowed to stay in the United States, at least for the time being.

After weeks of nightmares about a truck pulling up to her house and taking them away, she didn't know whether to be relieved or afraid.

The family's six years in the U.S. have included a failed political asylum application and a failed appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now they have what's called an order of supervision.

This means the government keeps track of you, you must notify officials if you plan to leave the state for more than 48 hours and you must steer clear of trouble. It also means immigration officials can send you and your family back to Iraq if peace is reached.

That's why, Muhamed said Thursday morning, "we don't know which day the nightmare will come back again."

Her nightmare began 14 years ago when , she says , she was raped by Iraqi government officials. Fearing that the officials would return or that her family would harm or kill her because of the shame, she fled Iraq with her children and wound up in Germany. They were granted asylum , but threats from Iraq soon followed them , she says .

She flew to Mexico and took her family to the U.S. But six years in and out of courts left them with the same outcome - after they had obtained asylum elsewhere, the U.S. government wouldn't offer the same assistance .

Still, as the war rages, only five people nationwide had been deported to Iraq through April. Only 38 had been deported to the country during the past three years.

David Leopold, vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said Wednesday's decision was an example of the federal government using prosecutorial discretion. "This is used all too little in the immigration world - the ability for the prosecutor to have heart and make a right and fair decision, and not go forward with enforcing an order," he said.

At the same time, he said, history has shown that orders of supervision granted to people from Jordan or Lebanon during the conflicts in those countries were also lifted .

"All of a sudden, one day they started removing people again," he said. "Her situation could change tomorrow." That's why Muhamed's daughter, Dalyia, finds it hard to plan . The slight, quiet junior at UNLV's School of Hotel Management wants to finish her studies and is enjoying her summer internship at the Venetian.

She watches news of the war in Iraq on television and feels divided.

"I want things to get better," she says of her birthplace.

"But we can't go back even if it gets better," she said. "We won't be safe."