Vol. 72/No. 30      July 28, 2008

Under an agreement between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments signed in January, some 1,500 Vietnamese who entered the United States after l995 face possible immediate deportation to Vietnam. Another 6,200 have received notices threatening deportation to a third country. Under a similar repatriation agreement signed with the Cambodian government in 2002, more than 160 Cambodians have been deported and many more have the threat of deportation hanging over them.

They are all targeted under the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Personal Responsibility Act, a law passed in l996 that mandates the deportation of immigrants the government labels as “criminal.”

Speaking at the Militant Labor Forum in San Francisco June 28, Hang explained that many of those threatened with deportation came here as children after the Vietnam War. “They were too young to remember anything about the country their parents came from,” she said.

Students who are members of Southeast Asians Making Immediate Change, which organized an April demonstration at the University of California at Davis, are discussing plans for continuing the fight against the deportations in the coming school year. One of their aims is to expose the undemocratic and inhumane nature of the l996 law.

The law mandates deportation of any immigrant who has committed an “aggravated felony,” whether that person is a permanent resident or not. The number of crimes defined as “felonies” has been expanded by four times, Hang emphasized. It now includes shoplifting, writing a bad check, and possession of marijuana. In one case a Cambodian man was deported after he was convicted of indecent exposure for urinating at a construction site.

The law is retroactive. Even if the crime was committed long ago, and the person has already served their sentence, they can still be deported. And there is little provision for appeal.

“In 2004, there was an outcry against the deportations in Cambodian communities,” Hang said, “There were demonstrations in Long Beach and other cities that put a halt to the deportations of Cambodians.” She said she hopes that protests now can have a similar impact in pushing back the deportation of Vietnamese.

A documentary film, Sentenced Home, gives a picture of the devastating impact of the l996 law on immigrant communities by telling the story of three young Cambodians in Seattle. One of them, Loeun Lun, was torn away from his wife and small children and deported to Cambodia, long after he served time in jail. Another, Many Uch, who has had the threat of deportation hanging over him for some 15 years, is an activist in the fight against deportations in Seattle.
 
 
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