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Deportations Devastate Cambodian CommunityFamilies Shattered"Chantha" remembers sitting in a workshop learning about deportation when she put the pieces of her older sister's life together and realized, "Hey, my sister fits into that."
It was March 2003, and her sister, "Dara," was serving a prison sentence for various non-violent crimes with a September 2003 release date. But Chantha was right. Dara could face deportation to her country of birth, Cambodia, because of her non-citizen status. Instead of being released in September, Dara was automatically transferred to immigration custody, her fate uncertain. If deported, Dara, now 23, will be torn from the country she has lived in since she was 4 years old, leaving behind her parents and five brothers and sisters. Most difficult of all, Dara will be separated from her two U.S.-born daughters--ages three and one. A 1996 immigration law made legal permanent residents convicted of even minor offenses deportable, but the U.S. expulsion of Cambodians has more recent origins. In March 2002 the U.S. pressured the Cambodian government to sign a repatriation agreement as part of President Bush's "war on terrorism." This unleashed a flood of deportations of Cambodian Americans like Dara. To address the crisis, in 2002 Southeast Asian organizers, activists and people with deportation orders came together to create the Southeast Asian Freedom Network. The network has set up a hotline for people who are concerned about being deported at 877-572-2228. From Northern California, call 510-834-8190. ALARMING IMPACTAlready 79 Cambodian Americans have been deported. Another 122 are in custody awaiting deportation or fighting a deportation order. Approximately 1,419 more are considered deportable but are temporarily under supervised release according to the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Behind these numbers are very human faces--sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers--who were forced to flee their homelands but are now legal permanent residents and have made the U.S. their home. Most, like Dara, came as children, do not speak Khmer, the Cambodian language, and do not know life in Cambodia. And while deportation breaks apart the stability of families here, the potential impact on the individuals is alarming. Dara's family fears she may be persecuted in Cambodia because her family fled after her father fought against Pol Pot's regime. "We recently learned that four years ago, Cambodian government agents came to my father's old house in Cambodia looking for him--then they burned the house down," Chantha said. Causing further concern is the fact that Dara could be the first woman deported to Cambodia. The situation for women, especially one with a criminal record, will be more difficult, said Theanvy Kuoch, executive director of Khmer Health Advocates in Connecticut, and a former victim of torture in Cambodia. Based on her own experience growing-up as a woman in Cambodia, Kuoch believes Dara will be received negatively by Cambodian society. "She's going to be treated worse than a guy because the expectation from Cambodian culture is that women should not make any trouble. They should not have problems [like a criminal record]," Kuoch said. Still, Chantha says her sister has hope. In March an immigration judge will decide whether Dara will remain here with her family or be deported. "She has a lot of faith and hope," said Chantha, "She says she's learned her lesson and that she won't make anymore mistakes--for her sake and for her kids' sake." Betty M. Song is an organizer with the Campaign Against Southeast Asian Deportation (seadep@apiforce.org) through Asians and Pacific Islanders for Community Empowerment. "Chantha" and "Dara" are pseudonyms used to protect the people involved. |
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