Detroit – Allies of a Chicago activist convicted of illegally getting U.S. citizenship are willing to put their homes up as collateral to get her out of jail while she awaits her sentence.
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Rasmieh Odeh is asking a Detroit judge to reconsider a decision that is keeping her locked up in a county jail until her next hearing in March. Prosecutors have until Wednesday to respond.
Odeh, 67, runs daily operations at the Arab American Action Network in Chicago, which provides services to immigrants. She was convicted last week of failing to disclose her convictions for bombings in Israel in 1969 when she applied for citizenship in Detroit in 2004.
U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain revoked her bond and ordered her to jail, saying she might flee the country. But in a court filing, Odeh’s attorney said she has no passport and is deeply tied to Chicago “in the form of commitment to her vocation of service and her reliance on its people for emotional sustenance.”
Michael Deutsch said Odeh could stay in the home of co-counsel James Fennerty. He said her allies are willing to put up homes worth more than $500,000 as surety, meaning they could lose them if she fails to appear in court.
Odeh served 10 years in an Israeli prison after a military court convicted her of a series of bombings, including one that killed two people at a Jerusalem supermarket. She insists she was tortured into confessing.
Odeh said she didn’t disclose it when she applied for citizenship because she believed the questions were related to any U.S. criminal history.
Deport her to Syria.
This is hard to understand. She’s been convicted of lying on her application to become a US citizen. Presumably the ultimate penalty will the be revocation of her citizenship and deportation. How can it make sense to keep her in jail because there is a fear she will flee the country if the penalty for her crime will be to deport her? If she flees, it will just save us the legal costs of deporting her.
She will not flee the country!
She will go underground and remain in the country; just to avoid jail.