Palestinian activist pleads guilty to US immigration crime
DETROIT — A Chicago Palestinian activist with a decades-old record of bombings in Israel pleaded guilty Tuesday to concealing those convictions when she applied for U.S. citizenship.
Rasmea Odeh, 69, will be deported to Jordan or another country in the months ahead. Supporters travelled to Detroit from Chicago to pack the courtroom, and many were in tears later on the courthouse steps.
Odeh was convicted at trial in 2014 and sentenced to 18 months in prison, but the verdict was overturned. A second trial was planned in Detroit, the city where she went through the citizenship process in 2004, before she decided to accept a plea deal.
But even with the plea agreement, Odeh found it impossible to say the word “guilty” when repeatedly asked by U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain. He gave up and accepted her reply that she had admitted her crime in the court document.