Since Cambodia first began accepting deportees from the United
States in 2002, many Cambodian immigrants have been torn from their
families in the United States and deported with minimal knowledge
of Cambodian society.
University of California, Davis, law and Asian American studies
Professor Bill Hing will speak on campus today regarding the
history and effects of the Cambodian deportations in an event
organized by the Asian American Studies Center and the Asian
Pacific Coalition.
About 1,500 Cambodian immigrants have been convicted of
aggravated felonies and have orders for deportation.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States
pressured Cambodia into accepting deportees by bringing up the
issue of economic aid and by threatening not to issue new visas to
Cambodians. Cambodia relented in 2002.
Most of the Cambodian deportees Hing has encountered came to the
United States as refugees from the killing fields of the Khmer
Rouge. Very few can recall life in Cambodia.
For immigrants born in Thailand refugee camps, being deported to
Cambodia will be their first time setting foot on their
country’s soil.
The deportees are being placed in an unfamiliar land with little
help from American or Cambodian governments. Many do not know how
to speak the native language.
The only assistance they have is from the United Nations, which
teaches them Cambodian and helps them find jobs.
Hing, who has been in touch with the U.N. program, said that
despite these efforts, deportees still feel isolated and lost, and
most suffer from severe depression.
Asian Pacific Coalition’s community relations director
Sharon Hing (unrelated to the professor) believes it is unfair for
the immigrants to be deported for their crimes.
“Most of the deportees have already served their time in
the U.S. Deporting them punishes them for being an immigrant
instead of for the crime they committed,” she said.
Chhorvann Chhea, a post-graduate epidemiology student from
Cambodia who is in the United States on a visa, said the
deportations are unfair to the immigrants and to Cambodia.
“They can’t just get rid of the bad people here by
sending them to Cambodia. If a person is not a good person here,
they will not become a good person in Cambodia. There should be
some way of making them a good citizen here,” Chhea said.
Under immigration laws, any non-citizen can be detained and
deported back to their native country if convicted of an aggravated
felony. Crimes categorized as aggravated felonies have included
offenses from spousal abuse to public urination.
“I’m not defending any of those things as being not
important,” Bill Hing said. “But to add deportation on
top of serving jail time is the problem. The punishment is too
much.”
Many deportees have been convicted of harsher crimes like
kidnapping and murder, but Hing suggests the environment for
refugees in the United States fosters involvement in gangs and
crime.
“If that’s the case then I really wonder if we
should be deporting people for things they committed because of an
environment that we as a country created,” Hing said.
Hing suggests alternatives to deportation, such as community
building and crime prevention, to solve problems of crime.
The deportation of Cambodian refugees creates an opportunity for
the United States to evaluate its immigration and deportation laws,
he added.
Khmer Girls in Action, a non-profit organization based in Long
Beach, has been fighting the deportation policy ever since Cambodia
began to accept deportees from the United States.
The organization has developed a hotline to help families
dealing with deportation and has worked on nearly a dozen cases so
far.
In their most recent case, Khmer Girls in Action successfully
helped a Cambodian immigrant stay in the United States after
receiving a deportation order for insurance fraud. Because he is a
nephew of a former president of Cambodia, they argued that he would
be persecuted if sent back.
Que Dang, the director of Khmer Girls in Action, said the
results of the cases were highly individualized, but most detainees
are deported and very few are released.
“But we’ve been lucky in having some success with
our cases,” said Dang.
Hing will be speaking at Campbell Hall 3232 from 4 to 6
p.m.