After 11 years, Gov. Newsom's pardon allows deported Cambodian American to return home

Sophea Phea, second from right, is welcomed home by her family.

Eleven years after being deported to Cambodia, Sophea Phea returned home to family and friends in Long Beach, Calif.

A pardon in 2020 from California Gov. Gavin Newsom paved the way for Phea's return to the US. Just earlier this year, an immigration court finally restored her status as a permanent resident. After almost 11 years in Cambodia, she reunited with her family.

"I'm sharing my story to illustrate the effects of deportation on the Southeast Asian community, specifically of refugees who've grown up in America after our parents fled the Viet Nam War," she told the Asian Law Caucus. 

"It’s not justice if despite growing up and spending all of our lives in America, if we commit a crime, serve time for it, and pay our dues to society, we still get kicked out of the country that is our home."

Prior to her deportation, Phea had never set foot in Cambodia. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, where many Cambodians fled to escape the genocide and carpet bombing of their country in the 1970s. As refugees, she and her mother came to the US when Sophea was a year-and-a-half old. The family eventually settled in Long Beach.

When she was 23, Phea served a year in prison after being convicted of credit card fraud. After serving her time, California’s prison system transferred her directly to ICE. After nine months in ICE detention, Sophea was released because Cambodia did not issue travel documents that would allow ICE to deport her. 

But ICE was relentless. Four years later, without warning, she was suddenly deported early one morning without any luggage or clothes. Like so many Southeast Asian refugees who are doubly punished by California’s prison system and ICE, Sophea had no connection to or familiarity with Cambodia.

In spite of all the injustices she’s faced, Phea gradually created a life in Cambodia. She became a teacher, and started organizing with other people to help Southeast Asian refugees who were also deported and advocated for their right to return home to the US.

As Phea returned, another Cambodian refugee was being deported. Phoeun You, who had completed his sentence of 25 years in San Quentin state prison, was deported by ICE Tuesday. There are other former refugees in ICE detention fighting to remain in the US.

A bill, AB937, known as  the VISION Act, passed the state Assembly and awaiting action by the Senate, would end the practice of the sending refugee parolees directly into ICE custody. 

"As immigrants, we carry enough torture and trauma from the past," says Phea during an interview by her legal team in Asian Americans Advancing Justice.  "I think it's important to convey the fact we were raised in America, and as humans, we make mistakes. 

"If we have already served time for our missteps, how is it just to deport us to our parents' homeland that we do not know? Most of us have never seen the country our parents desperately escaped from," she continues. "This double punishment is inhumane, and it happens solely because we didn’t have that piece of paper that says we’re US citizens– even though we were basically adopted by America."

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