Cambodians Fear Possible Deportation

In the killing fields of Cambodia, his family lineage amounted to an automatic death warrant: Lon Nol, president of the U.S.-backed regime that ruled Cambodia until the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover, was his uncle. So was Lon Non, the republic’s military commander.

Chanphirun Meanowuth Min lost his entire family to genocide shortly after the Communist takeover. Now the 45-year-old San Gabriel Valley resident fears that a Los Angeles immigration judge today will order him deported to the nation he fled.

Until recently, most Cambodians in the United States -- including an estimated 50,000 in Southern California -- were immune to deportation because many of them fled Cambodia as refugees and the Cambodian government had refused to accept them back as nationals.

That changed last year as the result of a new repatriation agreement between the United States and Cambodia. As a result, Min and roughly 1,400 other Cambodians now face possible deportation if they have been convicted of aggravated felonies -- in Min’s case, conspiracy to commit Medi-Cal fraud.

Another 4,500 Vietnamese and 2,000 Laotians could find themselves in similar straits as the United States seeks to hammer out repatriation agreements with Vietnam and Laos.

In Southern California, home to the nation’s largest Cambodian community, many of the potential deportees say they have no ties to their nominal native land. Some were born in refugee camps in Thailand. Others claim to be Laotians and say their parents may have registered them as Cambodians to gain faster access to the United States in the years after the Vietnam War.

“I have never set foot in Cambodia. If I go there, I will die,” said one 22-year-old man who asked that only his first name, Jerry, be used to avoid retaliation by immigration officials.

Government officials defend the new agreement, saying it was negotiated as a way to “level the playing field.” Noncitizens from other countries who are convicted of crimes are routinely required to leave the country -- 71,000 were deported last year, most to Mexico.

“It’s important for people to understand this is nothing targeted at Cambodians,” said one official, adding that people who are convicted of crimes lose their protected status as refugees.

Moreover, officials note, all of the people being threatened with deportation have been convicted of what the law defines as aggravated felonies.

Indeed, some Cambodians on the deportation list have been convicted of murder. Many, however, committed nonviolent offenses that were not classified as aggravated felonies until a strict immigration reform bill was passed in 1996. The bill enlarged the definition of an aggravated felony and sharply curtailed the discretion of immigration judges.

Congress has been considering legislation that would once again allow the cancellation of deportation orders for humanitarian reasons, such as keeping families intact. In the current atmosphere of concern for security, however, such measures face considerable opposition.

Him Chhim of the Cambodian Assn. of America in Long Beach said his organization is working with a dozen cases.

One father of two received his deportation orders after being convicted of child endangerment for driving drunk with his children in the car. Another was convicted of possessing marijuana and cocaine, which Chhim said the man used as “self-medication” to calm his continued nightmares stemming from the Cambodian holocaust.

Both men, he said, have paid their dues to society, gone through treatment programs for substance abuse and are needed here by their families.

“I don’t think they’re a danger to society,” Chhim said. “I understand [U.S. officials] want to protect the country, but these 1,400 Cambodians came as refugees and we promised to help them.”

A study of potential Cambodian deportees by the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center found that half were family breadwinners and a third had American-born children. On average, the deportees arrived in the United States at age 9, had been here for 20 years and spoke little or no Khmer, the Cambodian language.

Jerry says his family was imprisoned for three years in a concentration camp during the years of terror after Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot took over Cambodia in 1975. Widely accepted estimates blame the Khmer Rouge rule for taking the lives of more than 1 million Cambodians through executions, torture and starvation.

In 1979, Jerry’s family escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand, where he was born. He said he grew up on the streets of Long Beach with little parental guidance and no treatment for the trauma his family suffered in Cambodia -- including the brutal murders of his aunt and other relatives.

“They just chopped her head off,” he said. “We never talk about it.”

Eventually, Jerry says, he fell in with gangs. In 1997, he pleaded no contest to charges of armed robbery. He now says he did not commit the crime, but accepted the plea 18 months after his arrest at the urging of his public defenders and because he was tired of incarceration.

Today, Jerry says he has turned his life around -- dropping out of gang life and making A’s and Bs in business classes at Long Beach City College.

In Min’s case, his uncle Lon Nol left for the United States shortly before the Khmer Rouge takeover and resettled in Fullerton, where he died in 1985. From other Cambodian refugees, Min said he heard rumors that his Uncle Non, the military commander, had been beheaded. His parents and four sisters were also killed.

In 2001, Min was convicted after a government sting operation, along with two partners, for selling blood and stolen patient and doctor identification cards with the intent to defraud the Medi-Cal program. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison and was ordered to pay restitution to the state of $25,000.

Under the old rules, the crime would not have qualified him for deportation. But the 1996 law lowered the threshold for aggravated felonies involving fraud from $200,000 in losses to $10,000.

Min says he, too, has turned his life around -- he is now attending church and has sworn off alcohol. His attorney said he will argue in immigration court today that he should not be deported because of the likelihood of persecution in Cambodia.

“He comes from a very prominent family, and he may be subject to torture if he goes back,” said his attorney, Roman P. Mosqueda. “The U.S. cannot deport anyone if there is evidence they will be tortured.”

Vunyaung Tan, the Cambodian Embassy’s political consular, denied charges of government torture and said that the 30 or so Cambodians deported so far have been well-treated in Cambodia. He said, however, that some are facing hardships in finding jobs, since they speak little Khmer and have no family to rely on. He urged the U.S. government to increase aid to help them resettle.

“These people understand English and are more skillful -- they can train our people in Cambodia,” Tan said.

But such assurances do not persuade many Cambodians here.

“I served my time, paid the consequences and am trying to be a good citizen here,” Min said. “We’re afraid to go back, because we know if we do they’ll kill us.”