ICE silently deports Cambodian American parolee

SQNews

While he was in San Quentin, Phoeun You worked on the prison newspaper.

After spending 25 years in prison, a recently paroled Cambodian American immigrant was deported Tuesday without notifying his family to a country that he has not seen since he was 5-years old when he arrived in the US as a refugee.

“I am still right here with you,” said Phoeun You from Cambodia in a message to his family and supporters. “It’s not over until it’s over and we’re going to keep going.”

“He gave us a call at 1 in the morning and I was just really relieved to hear his voice that he was safe,” You’s attorney, So Young Lee, told NBC.

Phoeun You’s family and supporters learned Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported Phoeun to Cambodia, while he has been in ICE custody.

His family and supporters are still working for his return, pinning their hope on a pardon on California's Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

After learning ICE was transporting Phoeun to an airport Aug. 17 - a process shrouded in secrecy - community groups and elected officials around the state launched an all-out surge of activity to urger Newsom to grant Phoeun a pardon. Despite the deportation, the governor can still pardon Phoeun and reunite him with his family and community. Community members are also raising funds to support Phoeun in Cambodia, a country to which he has no ties.

“There are no words to fully capture the cruelty of this moment," said Lee, You's attorney.

"Phoeun should be home with his family, not deported to a country he escaped as a child. Last month, extremist right-wing justices on the Supreme Court continued their efforts to roll back progress on equality and justice for immigrant communities. That may have stopped the Biden administration from protecting tens of thousands of families from ICE deportation, but that shouldn’t stop California,” 

“There’s still time for Gov. Newsom to affirm the best of California’s values, pardon Phoeun so that he could come home, and support the VISION Act so that we never again turn our neighbors and loved ones over to ICE,” said Lee, an immigrant rights attorney at Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus. 

In recent weeks, there has been an outpouring of support for Phoeun. More than a hundred people, including State Senators Lena Gonzalez, Nancy Skinner, and Scott Weiner; Assemblymembers Mia Bonta, Alex Lee and Patrick O’Donnell; Oakland City Councilmembers; and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, have sent letters to Governor Newsom supporting Phoeun’s pardon. The Oakland City Council also unanimously voted on a resolution urging Governor Newsom to pardon Phoeun and stop his deportation.

“It's very sad that Governor Newsom could have done more to intervene but chose not to,” said James Bunyou, Phoeun’s oldest brother. “He isn't listening to our community outcry. Our family would like to thank all of the friends that came out to support him and fight for Phoeun to stay.”

In July, approximately 100 Bay Area residents, faith leaders, elected officials, and Phoeun’s parents and siblings rallied on the steps of the State Building in Oakland urging the governor to immediately pardon Phoeun and to support the VISION Act (AB 937) so that no one endures what Phoeun and his family have gone through. The VISION Act is a landmark racial and immigrant justice bill that would end the practice of handing over community members like Phoeun for deportation.

Despite the California Board of Parole Hearings recommending Phoeun’s release from state prison and reunification with his family and community, California’s prison system nonetheless chose to transfer Phoeun to ICE, leading to his deportation.

Phoeun You & His Family and Community

Phoeun You’s family survived the Cambodian genocide by fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand. Upon arriving in the U.S. as a child, Phoeun faced discrimination as an immigrant. His family endured poverty and violence living in under-resourced neighborhoods, and Phoeun joined a gang for protection and belonging. 

At 20, Phoeun’s only way of protection and survival was violence. In response to an attack on him and his family, Phoeun opened fire that resulted in his incarceration. After serving 25 years, in August 2021, the California Board of Parole Hearings recommended Phoeun be released from state prison in recognition of his rehabilitation and service. On his release date, California’s prison system allowed  ICE to immediately detain him that eventually led to his deportation.

Phoeun's family, friends, advocates, and many formerly incarcerated community members have been organizing to protect him from deportation -- emphasizing how much he has transformed and his leadership as a founding member of ROOTS (Restoring Our Original True Selves), a certified counselor by Bay Area Women Against Rape, and a mentor to many other Southeast Asian refugees who were incarcerated at a young age.

VISION ACT (AB 937)

AB 937 (Carrillo), the VISION Act, would ensure that once a person has earned their release from state prison or local jail, they are not transferred to abusive and possibly deadly ICE detention, and instead are able to return to their loved ones and rebuild their lives. This includes a person who has completed their sentence, been granted parole, had charges dropped, or been granted release by a judge. 

The bill is currently waiting for a vote by the state Senate, after passing the state Assembly and two Senate committees.

A recent decision by far-right Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, limiting the Biden administration’s discretion in deportation cases, underscores the urgency for California to grant clemency to Phoeun and to stop turning people who have served their time over to ICE.

At least eight California counties have already ended the practice of handing immigrant parolees to ICE, as have Illinois, Oregon and Washington, D.C.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

Wrongly deported Cambodian American refugee returns to the US

Supporters celebrate Thy Chea’s return to the US. He’s seen here with his wife Victoria Un holding their children.

By Felix Poon
ASAM NEWS

Dozens of people Wednesday night held “Unjustly Deported” and “Welcome Home” signs at Boston Logan Airport  as they waited for Thy Chea, a 50-year old Cambodian American refugee and a Lowell, Massachusetts resident, who was deported in August 2018.

Bethany Li, director of the Asian Outreach Unit of the Greater Boston Legal Services, and  Chea’s attorney, said she was feeling incredibly happy and excited for Chea’s return.

“People want to be able to live and be with their families,” Li said, “and [the policies] under this administration are preventing that and it doesn’t help anyone.” Li said that Chea’s wife, Victoria Un, has had a hard time as a single parent raising their toddler daughter and one-year-old son.

“It’ll be really great to see (them reunited).”

Chea’s deportation stems from a criminal conviction in 1999, when Chea plead guilty to assault and battery and “threat to commit a crime.” He served three months in jail, and in 2000, federal officials ordered his removal from the country. Without a repatriation agreement between Cambodia and the U.S., Chea was allowed to remain in the country as long as he didn’t commit further crimes and checked in regularly with immigration officials.

In April 2018 ICE ordered Chea to report early for his routine check in.

“[Chea] and his wife and his daughter went with him…they thought it was a regular check in,” Li said.

But it wasn’t. Chea was detained. Li got an immigration judge to grant an emergency stay, but it came too late — just minutes after his plane took off for Cambodia, a country Chea fled at the age of 10 with his family to escape the brutal Khmer Rouge genocide.

Li kept fighting. She motioned to get Chea’s green card reinstated on the grounds that his offense was not deportable, and that he was sentenced incorrectly to a year in jail for an offense with a six month maximum sentence.

The judge denied the motion.

Li appealed. She succeeded in reinstating Chea’s green card in June 2019. But the U.S. consulate refused to issue his travel documents, and on top of that, DHS recharged Chea with entirely new proceedings of removal.

“This is crazy,” Li said of the proceedings.

“Enough was enough. We filed a mandamus in federal court, meaning we were asking the court to order the Department of State…to issue travel documents so that he could return home as a green card holder.”

That was in December 2019. After weeks of back and forth between Li and the DHS, the consulate finally issued Chea’s travel documents.

“Up up with liberation, down down with deportation,” the crowd chanted, before Chea’s wife Un got a phone call.

“Come downstairs,” Un and Li said into the phone.

Chea finally appeared. He squatted down with arms open, his two children ran to him laughing and crying, straight into his arms. A tearful and smiling Chea scooped them up.

“I’m so grateful to be with my family. It’s been 18 months. This is my kid,” Chea said looking at his one-year-old.

“It’s my first time holding him, and meeting him.”

Chea is the fourth Cambodian American in the country to return to the U.S. after being deported, and the first on the East Coast. According to ICE data, deportations of Cambodian Americans have increased by 279% from 2017 to 2018.

ICE has not returned a request for comment at the time of this publication.

Kevin Lam, organizing director for the Asian American Resource Workshop noted that it’s the 45th year anniversary of the Vietnam War. “Forty-five years later the US may have forgotten about the devastation that they’ve caused in Southeast Asia, but we have not,” Lam said as a rallying call. He said that Chea’s return is just one of many his organization is fighting for, and he asked for continued support as they advocate for them and those that are vulnerable for deportation.

Both Lam and Li are hopeful after Wednesday.

“When we fight, we win,” Li said.

“So we’re looking forward to welcoming many more people like Thy home.”

Why so many Cambodian Americans own doughnut shops

SCREEN CAPTURE / AL JAZEERA

Susan Lim owns a chain of doughnut shops in Southern California.

Today, I have (temporarily) stopped counting calories in celebration of National Doughnut Day.

The Al Jazeera news agency produced a short documentary on the phenomenon why so many Cambodian Americans own doughnut stores. 

Susan Lim, who is featured in the video, explains the reason so many doughnut shops use pink boxes, and it basically traces back to her father who used his business acumen to help Cambodian refugees find their versions of the American Dream.

Unfortunately, the story of Cambodian fleeing the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s to the 1990s and seeking refuge in the United States continues into today's dark chapter as the Trump regime seeks to deport some of the refugees who grew up in the U.S. back to Cambodia, a country they have never been in.

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Deportation of Cambodian American ends in tragedy

ASAM NEWS

The Providence Journal has published a moving story about a Cambodian American refugee who came to America at the age of 4.
Sophorn San built his life in Rhode Island. He was one of 5700 Cambodian refugees who lived in the state. His family escaped the genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge that left 1.7 million to 3 million dead.

Now at the age of 27, San is dead --the victim of a motorcycle accident  that Phnom Penh police blame on a truck driver who is now facing charges for San’s death.

San was deported along with 35 others in December as part of a massive crackdown by the Trump administration that has sparked a huge surge of deportations.

“Although I am a Cambodian citizen on paper, I am in every other way an American,” he wrote in court papers, according to the Providence Journal. “I consider the United States to be my home and being deported to Cambodia would cause my family and I great trauma, as I have no connections in Cambodia.”

San pleaded guilty to possession of a handgun at age 19. He made his plea under the advice of a public defender who did not consider the plea would make San eligible for deportation.

He was arrested a second time in 2015 for resisting arrest, but it was the gun possession charge that eventually lead to his deportation.

His father recalls his last conversation with his son.

“We spoke with him 10 minutes before it happened,” San’s father, Chhith San, said. “He said he was going with some friends to get his Cambodian papers.”

“Just after it happened, they called me,” Say, Sophorn San’s mother, said, fighting back tears. “Then they took pictures and put it up on Facebook and sent them to me right away. I passed out when I saw them. I couldn’t believe it.”

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New court ruling allows Cambodian American deportee's return home

COURTESY OF METH FAMILY

Veasna Meth, second from left, was greeted by family and friends at San Francisco International Airport.

After five years in Cambodia and nine years in a U.S. prison, Veasna Meth is finally home.

“I knew one day I would be able to get back,” he told the Sacramento Bee Thursday (Mar. 1) upon his return to San Francisco International Airport.

Home for Meth is Sacramento, Calif. where he he has lived he grew up. He was 1-year old when he and his family immigrated to the U.S. as refugees. Between 1975 and 2000, the US accepted 145,000 Cambodian refugees as part of an influx of Cambodians displaced by war.

He was deported under Obama-era policies that prioritized the deportation of immigrants who had committed violent crimes.

In 2008, at the age of 19, Meth burglarized an unoccupied house by breaking in with friends. As soon as finished his year-long sentenced ICE tried to deport him. However, a judge ruled that his offense didn't justify deportation.

ICE persisted however and in their second try, they found a judge that approved Meth's deportation in 2014.

The Trump administration began visa sanctions on Cambodia, along with three other countries, in September 2017 to force them to accept deportees.

In April of last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sessions v. Dimaya (Fiipino American James Dimaya) that the definition of “crime of violence” – which is grounds for deportation – was unconstitutionally vague. With the decision, the California conviction of residential burglary is no longer a removable offense, and within 30 days, Meth's attorneys from the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus challenged Meth’s old removal order.

“Mr Meth’s return from deportation gives hope that others will also be able to reunite with their families in the United States,” said Kevin Lo, one of Meth's lawyers. He notes that Meth is the second Cambodian to return home, who coincidentally is another Sacramento resident.

“I’m excited to see my kids and to be back on American soil,” Meth told the Khmer Times. “I don’t quite know how to express it, but I just want to go outside and kiss the ground.”

The Trump administration began visa sanctions on Cambodia, along with three other countries, in September 2017 to force them to accept deportees. About 1,900 Cambodians currently live in the United States with deportation orders. ICE has ramped up roundups and raids and expects to deport about 200 Cambodian refugees a year.

“For me to get deported to a country I wasn’t born in, it’s crazy,” Meth told the Sacramento Bee. “Growing up, all I thought I was, was a citizen. ... Nobody ever taught me, ‘Hey if you commit a crime you’re going to get deported’ (until) it was too late.”

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Cambodian Americans deportations continue; are Vietnamese Americans next?

THE CAMBODIA DAILY

Cambodian Americans have been fighting U.S. deportation policies for years.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Updated Dec. 19 to include final number of deportees.

THIRTY-SIX KHMER AMERICANS are in the air enroute to a country they've never set foot in before. Many don't speak the language.

The department of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported the Cambodian refugees Monday from its detention center in El Paso, Texas. They are scheduled to land in the Cambodian capitol, Phnom Penh on Wednesday (Tuesday, PST).

Another 9,000 Vietnamese who sought asylum during and after the Vietnam War decades ago may also be at risk of deportation, as U.S. officials and Vietnamese officials this month to discuss reinterpreting an agreement protecting them from deportation.

The moves reflect the hardline stance against refugees of the Trump administration, which has widened the pool of deportees beyond recent arrivals to include those who have put down roots in the U.S, a generation ago.

An ICE official said it is policy not to comment on the deportation flights but representatives of immigration advocates and civil rights groups confirmed the departure from Texas.

Most of the people on the chartered jet on its way to Cambodia are men and a few women, according to Anoop Pasad, senior staff attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law Caucus.D Originally, 46 were to be on the flight by through pardon and other means of relief, the number was whittled down.

Pasad said his San Francisco-based organization of legal advocates represented six clients who were slated to be deported and five were able to get last-minute reprieves from their deportation orders.

"Almost everyone is leaving family behind," he said. "Almost no one has surviving family in Cambodia."

Katrina Dizon Mariategue, director of national policy for the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center in Washington, D.C., told NPR that Trump's policy is "short-sighted and very unfair."

"Many [of those being deported] were born in refugee camps," Mariategue said. "They don't speak the language, it's really hard to imagine a means of survival, especially because they don't know the culture."

ICE deported 79 Cambodians during Fiscal Year 2016, and 29 in Fiscal Year 2017. ICE told NPR in an email that the agency removed 110 Cambodian immigrants in Fiscal Year 2018.

Orders for deportation have been sent to 2,000 Khmer Americans. Most of them were convicted of crimes -- from minor charges such as driving under the influence to serious crimes that includes murder -- that they committed in their youth. After serving their sentences, most of them have become productive residents - holding jobs, going to school and raising families.

The Trump administration wants to expand its deportation policies to include Vietnamese Americans who have been in this country since the Vietnam War.  

The State Department said it would continue negotiations with Vietnam to repatriate some of its immigrants who've committed crimes. Like the Cambodian immigrants, many Vietnamese were resettled in the U.S. during and after the Vietnam War, said Melanie Kim, an attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus.

"These are not people who haven't been held accountable, these are all people who've gone through the criminal justice system, they have paid their debt to society," Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, told NPR.

"It is true you are subject to deportation [if you break certain laws]," said Meissner, who headed the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1993 to 2000. But it's not the same as what is depicted as "criminals on the loose" by the Trump administration, she said.

“We condemn the Trump Administration’s inhumane efforts to deport Cambodian community members right before the holidays, and we denounce the US government’s ongoing effort to change its historical interpretation on the ability to deport Vietnamese refugees,” said Quyen Dinh, executive director of SEARAC.

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Deportation of Cambodian American reversed

ASIAN LAW CAUCUS

Phorn Tem is greeted at tSan Francisco International Airport by family and friends.

ASAM NEWS

A CALIFORNIA MAN deported to Cambodia for a crime he committed nine years ago is back on American soil with familiy and friends.
The Sacramento Bee reports Phorn Tem returned to Sacramento Friday (Nov. 2) night to kisses and hugs from his surprised mother.

Run Nhei thought she was at San Francisco International Airport to greet a Cambodian embassy official, not her son.

Tem was one of 15 Cambodian nationals caught in a roundup by ICE agents during a roundup of up to 200 people last fall. He had been convicted of possession of marijuana when the 33 year old was 24.

“It was horrible,” he said. “I lost hope.” Tem said to the Bee about his time in Cambodia. He was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and was just 5 when he moved to the United States.

“Now that he’s back she’s finally going to be able to sleep,” said Phoeun Tem, Phorn’s sister. “Now that he’s back it’s a weight off our shoulders.”

Advancing Justice, Asian Law Caucus believes Phorn Tem is the first person to return from deportation to Cambodia.

“We’re proud to be a part of his journey and inspired to continue fighting for justice,” the group said in a Facebook post.

According to the Bee, Tem was deported one day before a superior court judge reversed his conviction on a prejudicial error.

Attorney Melanie Kim of Advancing Justice, Asian Law Caucus, fought to successfully reverse his conviction.

In order to secure his return, Kim filed a motion to reopen and terminate his deportation order.

“I filed a motion to reopen and terminate his deportation order arguing that because the underlying conviction was vacated, the deportation order is invalid,” Kim said. “The immigration judge agreed.”

When news of the reversal reached Tem, it took his breath away.

“Well, once the U.S embassy counselor in Phnom Penh told me I was in the clear by DHS and arranged for my departure back to the U.S. my whole body shook and I was holding back my tears,” Tem told AsAm News in an email. “Then I feel like passing out, couldn’t breathe. Took a deep breath and finally felt relief and kept on saying thanks to one of the counselors.”

Tem says it feels great to be back at home in the nice weather. He enjoys being able to take warm showers and sleep in a soft bed.

“I just enjoy every little thing that I took for granted, especially spending time with all my family here,” Tem said.

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