Brooke Lewis and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post
THE United States plans to ramp up efforts to deport non-citizens who commit crimes, according to a statement released in the wake of a controversial operation last week involving the deportation of five Cambodians.
The five who arrived in the Kingdom on Thursday brought to 234 the number of Cambodians who have been deported from the US as the result of a bilateral repatriation agreement signed in 2002.
All the deportees are former legal permanent residents in the US who have served prison sentences or been given suspended sentences for aggravated felonies, a classification that was expanded in 1996 to include some crimes that were previously misdemeanours.
According to an article on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website on Friday, the five Cambodians were part of a group of 98 deported “immigration violators” who were transported to six Asian countries on a chartered flight.
“This year, ICE expects to remove a record number of criminal aliens from the country, and charter flights like this are a big part of making that happen,” ICE director John Morton was quoted as saying in the article.
“The United States welcomes law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crimes in our communities should be on notice that ICE is going to use all its resources to find you and send you home,” Morton said.
Activists decried the latest round of deportations, which sparked protests and a petition in the US last week, as well as concern from rights groups in Cambodia.
Loeuth Sim, a 43-year-old who arrived in the Kingdom on Thursday, said yesterday that although he had been deported for the seemingly minor crime of “fighting with people a little bit”, he was happy to be here. “I didn’t do time, they just gave me five years’ suspended and five years’ probation,” he said.
He said he had arrived in the US as a 12-year-old refugee and had not been back since. “I’m happy they sent me back,” he said. “This is my home.”
The five who arrived in the Kingdom on Thursday brought to 234 the number of Cambodians who have been deported from the US as the result of a bilateral repatriation agreement signed in 2002.
All the deportees are former legal permanent residents in the US who have served prison sentences or been given suspended sentences for aggravated felonies, a classification that was expanded in 1996 to include some crimes that were previously misdemeanours.
According to an article on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement website on Friday, the five Cambodians were part of a group of 98 deported “immigration violators” who were transported to six Asian countries on a chartered flight.
“This year, ICE expects to remove a record number of criminal aliens from the country, and charter flights like this are a big part of making that happen,” ICE director John Morton was quoted as saying in the article.
“The United States welcomes law-abiding immigrants, but foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crimes in our communities should be on notice that ICE is going to use all its resources to find you and send you home,” Morton said.
Activists decried the latest round of deportations, which sparked protests and a petition in the US last week, as well as concern from rights groups in Cambodia.
Loeuth Sim, a 43-year-old who arrived in the Kingdom on Thursday, said yesterday that although he had been deported for the seemingly minor crime of “fighting with people a little bit”, he was happy to be here. “I didn’t do time, they just gave me five years’ suspended and five years’ probation,” he said.
He said he had arrived in the US as a 12-year-old refugee and had not been back since. “I’m happy they sent me back,” he said. “This is my home.”
20 comments:
I thought the us was a human right advocate. The US always criticizes other countries like China and Cambodia for human right abuses.
But with sending those former Khmer refugees back to Cambodia some were not even born Cambodia shows the US government is pretending but it uses human rights as a shield for its foreign pollicies interests only.
How much it costs the US to keep one hundred people like that in prisons or may be get them to workk for economy? How much the US on Iraq or Afghanistan? And how my civilian have been killed there? How about other illegal migrant in the US?
The US is playing games with Cambodia. It sends these people to consume resources in the country. They pretend to provide aids.
The US aid normally is the form of exporting war. The US took Khmer refugees is not because it's humanity as much but politically motivated. They took those who helped the US and fought for Vietnam war.
So Cambodia should believe in youself not others even Vietnam or china and they are all the same.
Why are Khmer fighting each other bitterly?
I dont care about those criminals and the US can deport them anytime but , the problem is , if the US is going to deport them why do they put them in jail ? After they served the time they should have been free . This law needs to be changed .
Khmer Ga
6:09 AM, This is a good comments. I agree. US uses human right for their interests only.
Ship all Khmer criminals and beggars back to Scambodia, please
7:10 AM,
don't forget to send back ah scum yuons, too...
Why Khmer-Americans are so dump and not able to understand that if they commited crime in USA they must be judged and jailed in USA and if they are an ex-criminal they are not allowed to be an American nor live in USA.
8:43 AM
You are also dumb the way you comment . You can't spell the word dumb either . People ( included you )all over the world make mistakes in their lives not just Khmer in the US . Dealling drug in Vietnam the punishment was kill but people still do it anyway . To make it short for you to understand, people make mistakes everywhere .
Please don't blame the US alone, if Ah Sen's government did not except these criminals for $$$$, the US might not send anyone to anywhere. On the other hand, if all Khmers came to the US and became US citizens, then there won't be any problems at all.
10:00 AM
Some people got deported after they applied for the US citizenship. Evrything was good till they applied for the US citizenship and then the record showed that some of them made mistakes years ago while they were young and then those people have been on the deporting list too .
To 9:58 AM,
I do agree with you that people make mistakes but think 8:43 AM probably meant to say that if you knew what the consequence would be why did you still commit the crime.
To 8:43 AM,
These people commited the crimes well before the law was enacted. However, the law was retrospective, meaning that, even though you have done the time for your crime, unless you are a citizen, you get the deportation order.
To 8:43 AM
What do you mean by calling Khmer American are dumb ? I am Khmer in the USA and if you call Khmer American are dumb, you call me and thousands of Khmer in the USA dumb too .That's not a very smart comment you made up there .
By the way , if you commited crimes you will serve the time no matter where you are , not just in the USA .. just in case you didn't know that .
10:56 AM poster .
Did you ever drive 10 miles over the speed limit ? Driving over the speed limit is breaking the law and breaking the is the same as commiting crime isn't it ? Why people still do that ? Unintentional mistake .
One young man has been jailed and deported because he has been carrying a gun inside the school zone without knowing he was in the school zone .
I hope poster 10:56 know what I wanted to say .
Does anyone know who made the decision to sign the extradition with the US? Was it the late Gen. Hok Lundy, or other Sen's official (s)?
11:59 AM
For example, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which applied retroactively to those convicted of deportable offenses, including some who had committed minor offences decades ago, was signed under former President Bill Clinton’s administration in September, shortly before elections in November that year.
Hun Manet
In 2002, the United States pressured the Cambodian gov't into signing a repatriation agreement in secret negotiations.
The Cambodian gov't signed an agreement only after the United States officials threatened to limit the number of future visas issued to Cambodian citizens. The agreement included a promise by the United States to pay a mere $100 to Cambodia to process each individual whom it sent back, with no resettlement assistance.
Akhmerican
Akhmerican:
Do you have any information about the aforementioned details that I can read about it?
1:51,
google the following:
[PDF] Detention to Deportation — Rethinking the Removal of Cambodian ...
Good luck,
Akhmerican
" You are also dumb the way you comment . You can't spell the word dumb either . People ( included you )all over the world make mistakes in their lives not just Khmer in the US . Dealling drug in Vietnam the punishment was kill but people still do it anyway . To make it short for you to understand, people make mistakes everywhere .
9:58 AM "
Sibce how hard you punis you you still doing it! you expect peple give you free of way to cpmmit CRIME?????
Go to hell you mayn have your way! fool!
If we send everyone back to their origins, then only the American Indians should live in North America. These Cambodians were given Constitutional rights that includes exclusion of double jeopardy. You cannot be punished twice for commiting the same crime. When they changed the law in 1996, it included a broad range of crimes including charges for something like a offenses from a car accident. Most of these people were past convicted crimminals.
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