Anna Werner
Reporting
CBS 5 (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, CA, USA)
(CBS 5) Buntha Nhep understands drug addiction, because nine years ago, he was a drug addict himself.
"(For) 7-8 months didn't have no shower. Just lived in a car and using drugs," Nhep said.
A crack cocaine habit put him in jail for a year. But help arrived in the form of a Stockton rescue mission.
"He was working for me and going to school at the same time, studying to be a conselor. He did it very well, still does it very well..." said Ada Brown of the mission. Nhep now works as a counselor at the mission.
But changing his life didn't change his past, and now the government says his decade-old drug convictions mean he should be deported to Cambodia.
For Nhep, it means more than losing his adopted home country of 30 years, because Nhep is a diabetic whose kidneys and pancreas failed. Dialysis three times a week keeps him alive while he waits for a transplant. But in Cambodia, there are no dialysis centers.
Randy Pinelli provides health services for Nhep. "I would be surprised if he made it to Cambodia," he said. "He wouldn't live...it's really kind of a death sentence."
"I will die in two to three weeks," Nhep said.
Doctors in the transplant program at California Pacific Medical Center, where Nhep is on the waiting list, agree. In a letter on Nhep's behalf, they say in Cambodia, "There are insufficient resources, for dialysis or transplantation, and (Nhep) would soon die."
"This is certainly one case where we think the government's got it wrong," said Nhep's pro bono lawyer, Guy Danilowitz. But Danilowitz admitted, "Even though we are appealing, we don't think there is that great of a chance of them granting it."
Why? Becuase he says immigration officials will tell the judge that under the strict immigration law, she has no choice but to deport Nhep. "The government is going to argue that she has no discretion but to issue a removal order. It's pretty much a death sentence," Danilowitz said.
So why won't officials with the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who could use their own discretion, drop their prosecution of Nhep? ICE officials didn't want to go on-camera. But over the phone, spokeswoman Virginia Kice told us longtime legal residents of the U.S. have to "Fly right, or fly home." When asked about Nhep's potential imminent death? Kice told us, "Immigration law is not written as a popularity contest."
"I don't think you would send someone back who contributes to society who is ill," Brown said. "That makes no sense to me, that would be definitely his death."
Nhep's case has been in litigation for years. Right now he's waiting for a final hearing in december. Ironically, because of the way the immigration law is written, the judge may not even be able to listen to the details of his case, or the fact that his life hangs in the balance.
"(For) 7-8 months didn't have no shower. Just lived in a car and using drugs," Nhep said.
A crack cocaine habit put him in jail for a year. But help arrived in the form of a Stockton rescue mission.
"He was working for me and going to school at the same time, studying to be a conselor. He did it very well, still does it very well..." said Ada Brown of the mission. Nhep now works as a counselor at the mission.
But changing his life didn't change his past, and now the government says his decade-old drug convictions mean he should be deported to Cambodia.
For Nhep, it means more than losing his adopted home country of 30 years, because Nhep is a diabetic whose kidneys and pancreas failed. Dialysis three times a week keeps him alive while he waits for a transplant. But in Cambodia, there are no dialysis centers.
Randy Pinelli provides health services for Nhep. "I would be surprised if he made it to Cambodia," he said. "He wouldn't live...it's really kind of a death sentence."
"I will die in two to three weeks," Nhep said.
Doctors in the transplant program at California Pacific Medical Center, where Nhep is on the waiting list, agree. In a letter on Nhep's behalf, they say in Cambodia, "There are insufficient resources, for dialysis or transplantation, and (Nhep) would soon die."
"This is certainly one case where we think the government's got it wrong," said Nhep's pro bono lawyer, Guy Danilowitz. But Danilowitz admitted, "Even though we are appealing, we don't think there is that great of a chance of them granting it."
Why? Becuase he says immigration officials will tell the judge that under the strict immigration law, she has no choice but to deport Nhep. "The government is going to argue that she has no discretion but to issue a removal order. It's pretty much a death sentence," Danilowitz said.
So why won't officials with the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who could use their own discretion, drop their prosecution of Nhep? ICE officials didn't want to go on-camera. But over the phone, spokeswoman Virginia Kice told us longtime legal residents of the U.S. have to "Fly right, or fly home." When asked about Nhep's potential imminent death? Kice told us, "Immigration law is not written as a popularity contest."
"I don't think you would send someone back who contributes to society who is ill," Brown said. "That makes no sense to me, that would be definitely his death."
Nhep's case has been in litigation for years. Right now he's waiting for a final hearing in december. Ironically, because of the way the immigration law is written, the judge may not even be able to listen to the details of his case, or the fact that his life hangs in the balance.
1 comment:
NHEP Bunchin has lots of money from being Labor minister of FUNC then. Why not help his kin, seriously?
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