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They helped Trump win Michigan, then his immigration crackdown split their community - The Boston Globe

posted onJanuary 7, 2020
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Article snippet: MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich. — The kettle steamed in the background as a familiar yet painful argument began to boil over between father and daughter in the Slewo home last Inauguration Day. “My president is going to be good for the Christians and the economy,” Warda Slewo, an ardent Donald Trump fan, told his daughter, Ashourina Slewo, in her small kitchen in the northeastern suburbs of Detroit on Jan. 20, 2017. “Your president is a racist,” Ashourina shot back. “I can’t look at your face when you’re saying that his plan for the economy outweighs the horrible things he’s saying about humans.” The argument got so heated that Ashourina’s big sister Ashley physically inserted herself between the two, telling her father to leave the house while everyone cooled down. Warda later apologized to his daughter, and the two made up. But just a few months later, Ashourina’s worst fears about what Trump’s election would mean for their Iraqi Christian family came true. On a hot Sunday in June, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fanned out in the Detroit suburbs, picking up more than 100 Iraqi immigrants as they made their way home from churches or family lunches. One of them was Ashourina’s father. When Warda Slewo reached a detention center in Ohio early the next morning, ICE allowed him a one-minute phone call. “Write this down,” he told his daughter. “They’re holding me in Youngstown. Don’t leave me.” An automated voice chimed in the background, warning the two tha... Link to the full article to read more

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