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Two months ago, the Mussed sisters of Dearborn and their mother traveled to Yemen for the wedding of a cousin.

Like many in metro Detroit's Yemeni-American communities, they liked to visit family and friends in the Middle Eastern country where thousands in Michigan have roots. But this year, the four U.S. citizens found themselves caught in the middle of a conflict that intensified between the Houthi rebels and neighboring Saudi Arabia and its allies, which began air strikes in March.

Unable to flee because airports halted all civilian flights, Ahlam, 20, Amat, 18, Eman, 16, and their mom were trapped in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, with bombs exploding around them. They have no electricity most of the time, and their food often runs out, said family members in metro Detroit.

"They're, like, basically waiting to die," said their brother, Ismail Mussed of Dearborn. "They're afraid to leave the house. They're scared ... They don't know what's going to happen."

Ismail Mussed and other Yemeni Americans have been pleading with the U.S. government to help evacuate them, pointing out that other countries such as China and India have evacuated thousands of their countrymen. On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted an amendment to a defense bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Dearborn whose district includes many Yemeni Americans, that urged President Barack Obama to help rescue them.

"Our office has been deluged with calls from Yemeni Americans, most of them my constituents, who are desperate to escape or have family trapped in Yemen," Dingell said Thursday. "They are looking for a lifeline, and they do not know how to get help. They need to know the government is on their side and has not forgotten them."

But so far, the U.S. Department of State has declined to help, saying it's too risky.

Yemeni Americans say the failure to act is part of a pattern of bias they face from the U.S. government. There are more than 39,000 Americans who were born in Yemen, with 12,200 of them living in Michigan, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates for foreign-born Americans. Dearborn has 5,403 residents who were born in Yemen, while Hamtramck has 3,125, making up a quarter of the city's population. The figures don't include Yemeni Americans who were born in the U.S.

"They're treating us like we're not Americans," said Mahmoud Ali, a Dearborn resident who has an uncle, brother and cousin who have been stuck in Yemen since March.

Last month, advocacy groups filed two lawsuits on behalf of Yemeni Americans against Obama and federal agencies, including the State Department and Department of Defense. They claimed the U.S. government was failing to help them. More than 50 of the Yemeni Americans mentioned in the lawsuits are from metro Detroit, where Yemeni Americans are the third-largest Arab-American group.

Right now, there are about 5,000 Americans stuck in Yemen, 900 of whom have registered on StuckInYemen.com, says the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The committee, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filed a lawsuit last month against the U.S. government over the lack of evacuations.

The two lawsuits are the latest legal action brought by Yemeni Americans alleging biased treatment by the U.S. government.

The Department of Defense didn't comment on the two recent lawsuits, and the White House referred questions from the Free Press to the State Department. The State Department also did not comment, referring Yemeni Americans in Yemen to a government website that provides information on where aid is available and what the U.S. Embassy is doing to help in countries overseas.

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