Austin Jenkins
National Public Radio (USA)
OLYMPIA, WA (N3) - He got in trouble with the law. And now a 33-year old Federal Way (Washington) man faces deportation to Cambodia - even though he left that country as a small child. Family and friends call it a miscarriage of justice. It's one of thousands of similar cases involving children of Cambodian refugees in the United States. According to advocates, Chhan (Chan) is one of thousands of children of Cambodian refugees in the United States who have either been deported or face deportation because of crimes they committed here. KPLU's Austin Jenkins reports.
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Chhoeuth Chhan is being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma - and could be deported any day now. Chhan was just two years old when his parents fled the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian killing fields and came to America. Chhan was a legal permanent resident, but never applied to become a full-fledged U-S citizen. Then in 2000, living in Western Washington, he spent a year in jail for second degree assault and unlawful imprisonment, stemming from a domestic violence incident. That was enough for Chan to lose his green card and get a deportation order back to his birth country. After years of appeals and delays, Chan has now received the final paperwork he needs for the US government to "remove" him to Cambodia. That's why he was recently locked back up. For his mother Ya Chan it's a nightmare.
Ya Chhan, Chhoeuth's Mother: "If they send my son back to Cambodia I lost my American dream."
Chhan says her son has no connection to Cambodia since he grew up in the U.S. A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement says U-S immigration law is clear: if you're a lawful permanent resident and you commit an aggravated felony, you lose your right to live in this country. I'm Austin Jenkins in Olympia.
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Chhoeuth Chhan is being held at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma - and could be deported any day now. Chhan was just two years old when his parents fled the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian killing fields and came to America. Chhan was a legal permanent resident, but never applied to become a full-fledged U-S citizen. Then in 2000, living in Western Washington, he spent a year in jail for second degree assault and unlawful imprisonment, stemming from a domestic violence incident. That was enough for Chan to lose his green card and get a deportation order back to his birth country. After years of appeals and delays, Chan has now received the final paperwork he needs for the US government to "remove" him to Cambodia. That's why he was recently locked back up. For his mother Ya Chan it's a nightmare.
Ya Chhan, Chhoeuth's Mother: "If they send my son back to Cambodia I lost my American dream."
Chhan says her son has no connection to Cambodia since he grew up in the U.S. A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement says U-S immigration law is clear: if you're a lawful permanent resident and you commit an aggravated felony, you lose your right to live in this country. I'm Austin Jenkins in Olympia.
9 comments:
Well,
I don't blame the law because the home owner invites you to stay in their house, but you cause trouble to the host family. You deserve to be kick out of the house. They let you in and send you to school to be a good citizen. You then run the system. Now the system is running you.
Good luck and welcome to the hell country run by dictator, Hun Zen. Hun Xen will bake and BBQ you, dude. Ah Hun Cen never cares who he kills as long as he is in power.
bad people get deported for a reason, and stop bringing rap music culture to cambodia, ok! i hate rap music! in the USA, those who like rap music are mostly gangster type of people! meaning these people are not educated and are probably high school drop-outs, etc...
Cambodia will always welcome you back at any time if you decide to move back to live in your motherland, United States has a tough law, if you break their laws they put you jail. Cambodia, we always help you out to avoid going to jail. I don’t like the United States of America; I don’t know how all of you can stand living there plus some people here like to go to live there. I k now a few white men American who visited Cambodia, they mentioned that they hate it there. They like to live in the Fareast. Anyway, I feel so sorry for my Cambodian youth, I am glad to hear the United States the state of Washington deport you to Cambodia.
(those who write long sentense I will not have time to read it.)
Angkorianman Krama Man
As far as I know, in Cambodia you get locked up only if you're a good person who lives by the rule of the law and also tries to get some justice for the poor and the powerless. As for criminals associated with the CCP, they always get away with murders. The simple explanation is that Cambodia is a dictatorship state. Is this sentance short enough for you Angkorian Krama Man?
To 2:27 AM,
In the United States almost the same way as Cambodia too, from what I hard if a Black man murdered, commit terrible thing, in some States they lock him up in jail or execute, in Cambodia there is no execute to the prisoner.
Thanks for your short sentence and good meaning to me.
Oh God! I am tired I have been working all night long, almost in the morning now. I get to go.
Angkorianman Krama Man
Congrafuckulation! Free one way ticket!
He got what he got..should have gotten ur citizenship...Cambodia is nice.
If Cambodia is so nice.. WHY THE HE** DO ALL CAMBODIAN PEOPLE WANT TO LEAVE TO AMERICA.. MARRY THERE AMERICAN COUSINS AND COME TO AMERICA??
Anonymous said: “I don’t blame the law because the home owner invites you to stay in their house, but you cause trouble to the host family. You deserve to be kicked out of the house.”
Are you kidding me? So you blame the victim instead? Yeah, sure…the home owner (America) invited us here, but only after they destroyed what was originally our home (Srok Khmer). Cambodia only became one of the most heavily bombed regions on the face of the planet thanks to this country, and it was these American policies that allowed the Khmer Rouge to come into power in the first place, thus creating the conditions that FORCED us to leave Cambodia.
And upon our arrival, what did we find in our new home? Cookie cutter houses and white picket fences? NO. We weren’t resettled in the kind of communities that would even allow the majority of us to even realize an “American Dream.” We grew up in the ghettos, in the poor-socio-economic communities that punctuate the landscape of this country with crime, drugs, and violence. Sure they “let us in and send us to school” but you know what? Our government spends more money on funding the prison systems and the war than they do on public education so don’t make it sound like just cause we get to go to school in this country that it’s enough to move up the world.
The deportees are products and victims of American policies (both historic and current) that continue to divide and destroy our communities. So I’m sorry, but I do blame the law, because the LAW IS THE PROBLEM and it is unjust.
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