DAVID GREENE, HOST:
It is pretty clear who President Trump wants Tuesday's midterm elections to be about.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Get out and vote. I want you to vote. Pretend I'm on the ballot. And don't worry. We'll be on the ballot in two years. And we will do a landslide like you haven't...
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TRUMP: ...Like you wouldn't believe.
GREENE: But isn't this Tuesday, in many ways, about you? At the end of the day, Politics is Personal. And that's what we've called our series that's wrapping up this morning. Some of the big decisions and national movements of the past two years have impacted communities and impacted lives. And so what does this mean for how people vote? Today, an issue President Trump talks about maybe more than any other - immigration.
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TRUMP: We can't let people break in and assault our country.
I call it extreme - extreme vetting.
Strong borders, no crime.
GREENE: Detroit, Mich., this city and its suburbs are home to the largest Arab-American population in the United States. Honestly, it's easier to find Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi restaurants than it is your everyday American diner. In Sterling Heights, tea is served with a soundtrack - well, at least ceremonial clinking of small teacups.
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GREENE: Sterling Heights is home to many Iraqi Christians. And they largely supported President Trump in 2016 because, as a candidate, he highlighted the plight of Christians facing persecution in the Middle East. But the president also said he was committed to enforcing the law, which is why Steve, an Iraqi Christian man, was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, this past summer.
STEVE: I got picked up June 11 at my house at 7:30 in the morning, right when I got home from work. It's like they knew my schedule.
GREENE: You work overnight?
STEVE: I was working nights. I got home right at 7:30. As soon as I sat down with my sons, the guy just walked in the door. He didn't knock or nothing...
GREENE: Into your house?
STEVE: ...Stepped on my dog and everything.
GREENE: And we should say, we were only using Steve's first name because he is concerned about a backlash. He moved to the U.S. when he was a baby, and he has been in the U.S. legally with a green card. He's a single dad. He's been raising two kids. But he has two felonies on his record from years ago, for selling liquor and narcotics without a license. He had been checking in with ICE regularly, living a stable life in the U.S. He never imagined he might be sent back to Iraq. But green card-holders who have criminal records can be deported. It has been the law, and President Trump has decided to aggressively enforce it.
Do you have any family in Iraq?
STEVE: I think there's, like, distant cousins somewhere.
GREENE: So there's obviously a debate in this country. There are people who are going to hear your story and be like - you know what? - we're all here. We've never broken the law. And if you break the law, that's your problem. You deserve what's happening to you.
STEVE: Well - I mean, what can I say to them? Everyone has their own thoughts and ideas. I don't think it's fair.
GREENE: Is there a part of you that thinks that someone who has never committed felonies deserves to stay more than you do?
STEVE: I mean, there's a difference, yeah. I don't know how to answer you that by saying should they be allowed. I can just answer for me. Yeah, I made the mistakes. I mean, they were felonies. I did the time. I paid my dues. Now I'm here. I got my IT degree. I'm programming now in a company that I've been there for 12 years. I've been paying my taxes for forever. What am I going to do in Iraq? Definitely, I'm not taking my kids with me. You know, I'm going to step foot in Iraq and right away get put in a jail. There's nobody going to be in Iraq waiting for me with open arms. Nobody - I have nobody.
GREENE: Steve is out of detention right now as his lawyer fights his case. But his future remains uncertain.
And the same Trump policy of rounding up criminals has changed Angela's life as well. She also lives in Sterling Heights. We're withholding names here to protect her family. We caught up with Angela one recent morning as she was getting her four kids ready for schools.
ANGELA: ...Backpack?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: I have it.
ANGELA: OK. But you don't have your water bottle.
GREENE: Angela's ex-husband also moved to the U.S. from Iraq as a child. He has a green card. He owns a number of auto body shops.
ANGELA: He's a businessman. He opened the business here. He's got more clientele than the dealers do. We're known in the community.
GREENE: One night a couple years ago, she says, he was working in a shop when a guy came in and frightened him. Angela says her ex-husband grabbed his gun and drove the guy out and that when police arrived, they found out he didn't have a gun license and arrested him. He served more than a year in prison, and then ICE got involved. Their records show Angela's ex was convicted on charges including possession of a firearm, and they picked him up this past March just as he was leaving state prison to reunite with family.
ANGELA: At 7:15 in the morning with all of us waiting outside.
GREENE: And he's been in ICE detention since then?
ANGELA: Oh, yeah. He's been in St. Clair County, Chippewa, Monroe - recently, they put him on a plane, took him to Louisiana. From Louisiana, he went to Pennsylvania. And on Monday, Pennsylvania, they brought him back to Louisiana. Now we have no idea where he is. They don't know what they're making us go through right now, as the moms and the wives, and what we have to put up with daily.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Yeah.
ANGELA: I've got to be at these Detroit body shops alone. I've got to be watching these employees not to steal from me. Yet I'm watching myself not to get killed. You know what I'm saying?
GREENE: For a citizen who doesn't know these details and has never met you and just feels like this man broke the law, he was not in the country with citizenship. He had a green card. And legally, this president wants to remove lawbreakers. I mean, what would you tell them?
ANGELA: Isn't your life at risk with a United States citizen who's committed a felony? But because they can't be deported because they're not from another country, they can't leave.
GREENE: Do you feel like there's something riding on this election in November for your family?
ANGELA: A lot, a lot. I really think the person in office matters. I really think it does. We are living a nightmare, and nobody knows it.
GREENE: And even though he's not on the ballot in November, you feel a sense of...
ANGELA: I do. Anybody with him, anybody on his team, anybody that's got anything to do with him - supports him, his organization, his charities anything - everybody got to go from his side.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: OK.
GREENE: As Angela was talking with us, her 4-year-old son was next to her. Being without their dad has been tough on the kids. Depending on age, they have different levels of understanding.
ANGELA: I can't hide it from them because it's everywhere.
GREENE: Even this little one?
ANGELA: Well, you know, he sits there. And he just says - Dad, when are you going to come home? Are you coming home soon?
Where's Dad?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: At the shop.
ANGELA: Oh, at the shop? He's at the shop.
I had my 7-year-old tell their dad - Dad, do you like Trump still?
GREENE: So your husband liked Trump?
ANGELA: He did. And it's a shame for me to say that. He really did. He wanted him in.
GREENE: Why?
ANGELA: Because he was supporting the Christians. We've never had a president make us priority before.
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GREENE: Both Angela and Steve are living in fear right now for what all this could mean for them and their families. And there is something about this issue and this moment that is striking. Fear drives the politics on all sides. There are people who have watched Trump's immigration policies play out and have a different view.
NEDAL TAMER: What's this?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: Cucumber.
TAMER: Good job.
GREENE: We caught up with Nedal Tamer, who was gardening with his son. He fled war-torn Lebanon in the '90s. He's Shia Muslim. And his family was being pressured to join Hezbollah, the political party that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization. Nedal's mother urged him to leave, and he did - for America.
TAMER: You always hear about United States - how the beautiful country, the freedom and the people. My story, it's an American dream. We start working. We went to school. Marriage, love story, kids - that's life.
GREENE: Nedal has built his own business, a successful construction company. In a city that went bankrupt - that many people counted for dead, he has been riding a construction boom.
TAMER: I've been in Detroit more than 20 years. I never seen this.
GREENE: What do you think has brought the economy back?
TAMER: I think the new president, the new government.
GREENE: You give Trump credit for...
TAMER: Yes.
GREENE: ...For the economy.
TAMER: Yes, yes.
GREENE: He also gives Trump credit for protecting the country. He doesn't see terrorist attacks like he used to. He feels the Islamic State isn't as powerful as it used to be. All of this, he believes, is worth tough immigration laws, like the president's travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries.
TAMER: It's a law. That's a law. If you have a family now and they have a roof under their head and they are safe, they'll be OK until the law changes. You've got to be patient. You have to have faith in God. You're not the only one. That's the side effect. You pay the price for the others.
GREENE: But you can see how someone would hear you talking about this and want to say - but Nedal, you wouldn't have been able to move to the United States if your country had been on the list.
TAMER: Yes, I wouldn't be able. I will wait until ban will - the law change. You have temporary law or temporary ban. That's fine.
GREENE: But you realize, for Nedal, it is not just about fear of what might happen in the country if the wrong people come in. If he doesn't support the president, he fears losing the life he has built in this country. Should there be another attack like, say, 9/11, he said, he wants to avoid any doubt about where his loyalties rest.
TAMER: We want to remind the Muslim community during Sept. 11, what happened to us. Let's say some guy came, and the guy has been brainwashed by ISIS for years and create any problem in any state or in any school. We're going to say - oh, we are against a travel ban? We have to agree with the president for our own safety.
GREENE: So you think it's very important for a Muslim-American like yourself to support the president's ban because if you didn't...
TAMER: If any huge terrorist attack happened like Sept. 11...
GREENE: ...You'd be blamed?
TAMER: Maybe.
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GREENE: And this is one of the things that stood out to us as we traveled to Missouri, to Texas and then to Michigan all this week. So much of our politics today is divisive, pitting one side against another. But if you really get personal, you see some of the same human emotions from people on different sides reacting to this moment - which makes you think, we're sharing more as a country at this moment than we realize.
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