Judge blocks deportation of Cambodians

Former Cambodian veterans protest deportation of their fellow refugees.

ASAM NEWS

A U.S. DISTRICT Judge in California has blocked the deportation of 92 Cambodian refugees, reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney ruled the detainees “were denied due process by the government when it detained them and threatened to deport them without adequate notice and an opportunity to be heard.”

They were arrested in October during raids which have been described as the largest raids in the history of the Southeast Asian American community. Most had escaped the Khmer Rouge in the 70’s.

“ICE’s campaign of detention and deportation ignores the reality that Cambodian refugees with deportation orders continue making vital contributions to our communities,” said Jenny Zhao, Immigrant Rights Staff Attorney at Advancing Justice – ALC. “As this decision affirms, the government’s actions here offend our basic desire for justice and the Constitution.”

RELATED: Judge delays deportation of Cambodians

According to Reuters, three other judges have issued similar rulings blocking the government from quickly deporting immigrants who have lived a long time in the country.

“The court had the same understandable reaction as federal judges in Detroit, Boston and Miami have recently had, pointedly asking why the administration was intent on abruptly removing long term residents without even giving them a chance to show they were entitled to remain here.”

_________________________________________________________________________________

Philippine president's drug war spares Filipinos' deportation from the U.S.

SCREEN GRAB / CNN

Donald Trump's immigration policies have drawn nationwide protests against the deportations.

PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte's controversial war against drugs kept two Filipino immigrants from being deported from the U.S.

The two Filipinos are not undocumented immigrants. Both men are green card holders who live in San Francisco with their families. They chose to remain unidentified. They were represented by the Asian Law Caucus, a legal advocacy agency.

Serving jail terms for drug offenses, Immigration and Customs Enforcement started deportation proceedings against them, part of Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants who have criminal records, no matter how minor. 

ALC attorney Kevin Lo successfully defended his clients' lives using the United Nation's Convention Against Torture. He argued that their lives would be endangered if they returned to the Philippines, where Duterte's anti-drug strategy which endorses the slaying of anyone connected to the drug trade, no matter if one is a dealer, manufacturer or victim.

“In evaluating the cases of the two Filipinos clients, we learned about the situation in the Philippines with President Duterte’s drug war. And when we realized that they had claims for protection under the Convention Against Torture, we decided to take their cases because we know the situation is pretty serious,” Lo told the Inquirer, a Filipino newspaper.

“We decided to make the argument that drug addicts who are deported to the Philippines has a more then 50 percent chance to be added to government watch lists and subsequently killed,” Lo explained.

RELATED: Trump's plans for deporting undocumented immigrants

The judge allowed the Filipinos to stay in the U.S. while Duterte is in office. If and when thte Philippine president's six-year term comes to an end, they would again be eligible for deportation.

Since Duterte has taken office, there have been over 8,000 extra-judicial slayings by the military, local police, private security guards or self-anointed vigilantes. Human rights advocates, including President Barack Obama, have condemned the executions without due process.

         RELATED: An inside look at Duterte's war on drugs by NYT

Despite the international criticism, Filipinos appear to support the Duterte's drug was as his popularity continues to be extraordinarily high.

Although most of the deportations under the Trump administration have involved people from Mexico and other Latin American countries, a large number of undocumented Asians -- one in seven Asians, or 1.65 million, according to U.S. immigration advocates -- are in the United States.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security told Philippine authorities that up to 310,000 undocumented Filipinos may be eligible for deportation. The Philippine government estimates that there are about 3.4 million Filipinos and Filipino/Americans in the U.S.

In a phone conversation, Donald Trump praised the Philippine president and his fight against drugs. 

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

Trump invited Duterte to visit the White House sometime in the future drawing strong condemnaton from human rights organizations. No date has been set for the visit.

###

35 maps that explain how America is a nation of immigrants

AMERICA'S earliest human inhabitants were themselves immigrants. About 25,000 years ago, a group of Asians crossed the land bridge connecting Alaska and Siberia and entered North America. Of course, it wasn't called America then. That name came much later.

Vox.com gathered 35 maps to explain the history of immigration to the Americas, specifically, the United States. For those of us more visually oriented, it is very informative and easy to follow reinforcing the myth that America is a land of immigrants, a lofty self-image, but at the same time, some of the maps demolish the myth of our "melting pot" and our "tolerance" towards strangers.

It explains the forced immigration (slavery) and why Europeans dominated the number of immigrants in the early 20th century; the impact of the 1965 reform of immigration that changed the makeup of immigrants.

American politicians, and Americans themselves, love to call themselves "a nation of immigrants": a place where everyone's family has, at some point, chosen to come to seek freedom or a better life. America has managed to maintain that self-image through the forced migration of millions of African slaves, restrictive immigration laws based on fears of "inferior" races, and nativist movements that encouraged immigrants to assimilate or simply leave. 

But while the reality of America's immigrant heritage is more complicated than the myth, it's still a fundamental truth of the country's history. It's impossible to understand the country today without knowing who's been kept out, who's been let in, and how they've been treated once they arrive.

Unfortunately, the maps are purely factual and doesn't explain why immigration  and the present wave of immigrants is such a problem with a lot of people today. 

Coupled with the PEW study that reports that Asians now outnumber Hispanics as new immigrants, it could be an interesting next few years as that stat becomes more widely known among politicians and marketers. My fear is that it might create a backlash against Asians, not only from the dominant ethnic group, but also from other minorities who are still fighting for their piece of the pie and who may resent the newcomers.

But there's reason to hope for a much better outcome: that Asian American immigration advocates will join forces with the better established minorities to form an even more influential bloc of voters and consumers. If those minority groups could overcome their suspicions of each other and realize their combined strength; That coalition of African, Latino and Asian Americans complementing and energizing each other would be difficult  to ignore.

###