PHILADELPHIA — In order to fight effectively against exploitation and deportations of immigrant workers, “we need peaceful protesting, not agitating or throwing things. The rallies show people care,” Anh Vongbandith told a Jan. 10 Militant Labor Forum here titled “Fight Deportations, Win Amnesty for Immigrants!”
Anh has been fighting alongside her husband, Anou Vongbandith, since he was stopped and arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents July 26 as he was on his way to work, because one of his car lights was flickering. He was detained and threatened with deportation to Laos or some other country.
Anh spoke along with Ved Dookhun, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party here. From the audience, Anou joined the discussion. The couple owns a popular restaurant, Das Good Cafe, in the Germantown neighborhood.
Now 50 years old, Anou came to the U.S. when he was 5, fleeing repression with his parents. Today he can’t speak the Lao language and has only loose connections to family there.
Anou had his green card taken away when he and his wife were arguing with their 15-year-old daughter, and she accused them of child abuse. She has long since admitted no abuse ever happened.
“Whatever is most valuable in your heart is what they will use against you,” said Anh.
After his arrest, Anou was detained in the Moshannon Valley Processing Center near Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. Anh, partisans of their restaurant and others organized to get out the word about his arrest and to press for his release.
Anh described an Aug. 9 demonstration in front of the restaurant in solidarity with them. “We expected 50 people. There were 700.”
“We did what I was told was impossible,” she said at the rally. Anou was freed on bond Oct. 29, in great part due to the support they won.
We can win these fights
“Working people run the country, that’s who we’re protecting. Everybody!” Anh said. “If anybody needs help with their fight, they can come to me.”
Anou described the horrific conditions at the prison and said that by far most people he met don’t belong there. “Like me, they got stopped and didn’t have the right document. I met one 72-year-old prisoner who took a plea deal in 1986.
“It was bittersweet getting out because everybody should get out,” he said. “I try to stay in contact with some of those I met. I get messages on WhatsApp from former prisoners who were deported to Africa.”
Anou received many letters of support. Fellow prisoners “read all my letters — it gave them hope,” he said. “The letters kept him going,” Anh added. “Because of the support we got him out in three and a half months.”
Prisoners attentively watched the TV news about the fight of Kilmar Ábrego García, the 30-year-old apprentice sheet metal worker and SMART Local 100 member from Beltsville, Maryland, who is fighting against his own deportation. For a while he was sent to Moshannon. He has since won release and is home in Maryland getting out the word about his fight and participating in court hearings.
“Kilmar is our champion,” said Anou. “If he wins, we all win.”
Anh said she and Anou are composing a letter of solidarity to send to Ábrego García. “The support shows people care,” she said.
Ábrego García has said that when he was sent to the brutal CECOT megaprison and tortured in El Salvador he had no idea of the support he was getting in the U.S. It had a big effect on him when he got out and learned about it.
“Solidarity is so important because the whole idea of detention is to break you down,” Dookhun told the forum. “We are for broad, public demonstrations, that can draw the broadest support. It is possible to build a powerful movement that can win amnesty for millions of workers without papers.
“Because of oppressive working conditions around the world imposed by the U.S. and other imperialist powers, people migrate to the U.S. and other countries,” he said. “That makes the working class here more diverse, capable and effective fighters.”