part of a negotiation that the administration made with the iraqi government to take them off of the travel ban list. and so you could also say that jimmy s death is a result of a side effect of the travel ban. they put them on the travel ban, the first iteration. and a negotiation with iraqi government says we ll take you off the travel ban that flows from the president wanting to ban all billion muslims if you start accepting deportations. and then they go round up a bunch of folks who are predominantly persecuted christian minority from iraq to send them back to iraq. that is absolutely correct. in 2016, our secretary of state john kerry declared what happened to the christians in iraq at the hands of isis was a gen genocide. so our government for the past two years has spent millions of dollars trying to deport people to a country where their fellow caldeans had just been victims
to a country where their fellow caldeans had just been victims of genocide. the christian population in that country is almost zero at this point. the last estimate is that it was under 200,000, and that s from a high of 1.5 million before the u.s. invasion in 2003. at this point, the estimates are under 200,000. and i would guess it s probably even lower than that. jimmy is is in a unique situation in that he was never even born in iraq. he had never stepped foot in the country. he had no knowledge of arabic. he spoke english and a little bit of aramaic, which is the caldean language. he had no way to communicate with anyone in that country, and that is, again, another factor that led to his death. again, i m just so sorry what happened to jimmy. deepest condolences to his family. thank you. and thank you for telling his