By Julia Cardi and Melissa Nann Burke
The Detroit News
(The Detroit News) The Dearborn-based Arab-American Civil Rights League has filed a federal lawsuit against the country’s top defense and state department officials, saying the government has not done enough to evacuate citizens and green card holders stranded in Lebanon amid ongoing strikes by Israel.
The Dearborn nonprofit filed a class-action case Thursday on behalf of four U.S. citizens and one green card-holding permanent resident currently stranded in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, “under imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury,” according to the lawsuit. It names U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in their official capacities.
ACRL founder and chairman Nabih Ayad urged the officials in a news conference to use every resource available — including military ships, other vessels and airplanes, and contracting with private airlines and ship liners — and for the strikes to pause while the U.S. evacuates its residents from the country.
“We find it very troubling that the strongest nation on Earth, who can … deliver weapons and deliver jets and deliver tanks and deliver rockets to a nation that’s bombarding its own citizens, cannot sit there and evacuate its own citizens from that country,” he said.
Israel has struck what the military says are militant targets across swaths of Lebanon in recent weeks. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
On Tuesday, news reached Michigan’s Arab American community that Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad of Dearborn was killed in Lebanon. The Detroit News has not independently verified the circumstances of his death.
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An estimated 86,000 U.S. citizens are currently trapped in Lebanon, Ayad said. He added there are likely many more green card holders in addition to that, though he wasn’t sure of an approximate number. He estimated the lawsuit’s class could grow to include hundreds of plaintiffs.
Typically, a decision to evacuate American citizens would be made by the State Department, which could call in the Pentagon to help execute an evacuation plan.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a Wednesday press briefing the department has been able to find about 800 spots on commercial flights out of Lebanon since late September. One flight left Wednesday from Beirut with more than 100 American citizens and family members on it, he said.
“It’s been a priority for us to enhance the capacity of flights in and out of the region,” Miller said.
The U.S. military is “on the ready” and has a wide range of plans should U.S. citizens need to be evacuated from Lebanon, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said at a press briefing Thursday.
“We haven’t been called to do them. So of course we remain ready, and we’ll be in touch with our State colleagues but that’s not something that is being is being considered right now,” Singh said.
Singh added that the State Department’s decision also has to do with the demand to depart, and she noted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut remains open and continues to operate on regular hours.
“My understanding is that there are still commercial options available to American citizens to get out,” she said.
“I believe, today, my colleague at the State Department was just briefing that there are (airline) tickets available in the hundreds that can be purchased. Or if someone cannot afford that ticket, there is a loan given to them that can be repaid over time.”
But the ACRL says flights out of Lebanon have grown increasingly scarce and are prohibitively expensive. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sent a letter to Blinken this week, urging more action to evacuate those who have not been able to leave the country said flights can cost up to $8,000.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whose district includes some of Wayne and Oakland counties, said she has heard from more than 148 citizens and permanent U.S. residents struggling to find a way out of Lebanon.
In Dearborn, individuals with at least partial Lebanese heritage make up the largest group of Middle Eastern and North African residents, with more than 22,000 residents. Metro Detroit has the largest population per capita of Arab Americans in the U.S., according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last year. More than 300,000 MENA residents lived in Michigan as of the 2020 census, with about 140,000 residing in Wayne County. Of those 140,000, 42% live in Dearborn.
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