nwasianweekly.com
Jan. 19, 2008

Photo by James Tabafunda

Candy Thepphasourinthon, 18, reads a poem at a rally protesting increases in deportations, held Jan. 8 in front of the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in Seattle.

Rally protests change in immigration policy

By James Tabafunda
Northwest Asian Weekly

She, too, has a dream. Like Martin Luther King Jr. did in his famous 1963 speech, “I Have a Dream,” Candy Thepphasourinthon recited a poem to demonstrate for freedom.

The 18-year-old senior at Career Link Academy, in Seattle, said deportation without a judicial review hurts her because she sees “family members threatened and being sent away.”

She and about 100 others gathered for a rally Jan. 8 in front of the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in Seattle. They joined together to raise awareness about the detention and deportation of refugees, especially those from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia, Somalia and other war-torn countries. Many of the featured speakers called upon lawmakers to reinstate fairness and judicial review in U.S. immigration policy.

They rallied against deporting refugees who have lived in the U.S. for decades, especially children, back to their countries of origin, ones they originally fled in fear or have no family ties with. To them, deportation means being sent to a country where they don’t know its culture or language. In the worst cases, deportees may face imprisonment, harassment or even death.

“We can change this and live in unity,” said Thepphasourinthon. “Like Martin Luther King who once had a dream, my dream is for these things to change.”

The event was sponsored by the Refugee Justice Project and Khmer in Action. It drew the support of several other community groups, including Asian Counseling & Referral Service, Southeast Asian Resource Action Center and the Church Council of Greater Seattle.

Other speakers at the rally talked about detention and deportation causing depression, anxiety and suicide among refugees.

Many in attendance wore black T-shirts with the message “Got due process?” in large white letters on the front. They gathered in a large circle, carrying signs with such messages as “One community for justice” and “Deportation is a lifetime banishment!” One girl carried a sign saying “Immigrant rights are human rights.”

In 1996, Congress passed two changes to U.S. immigration law — specifically, the 1980 Refugee Act — granting safe haven in this country to refugees fleeing war, oppression and political strife. The first one is the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act; the other is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Both increased the number of crimes for non-U.S. citizens to be detained and deported. Both U.S. acts also limit the discretion of immigration judges to waive deportation.

Both acts were applied retroactively, making non-U.S. citizens who have lived in the country since childhood and been found guilty and sentenced before 1996 of an “aggravated felony” — shoplifting or a DUI, for example — eligible for deportation. Unlike U.S. citizens in the criminal justice system, indigent defendants in immigration cases are not provided with free legal counsel.

The New York Times reported Jan. 15 that in 2007, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency “sent 276,912 immigrants back to their home countries, including many who had never been arrested for crimes, but were deported for civil immigration violations.”

Rally organizer and Refugee Justice Project member Many Uch, 31, is a refugee from Cambodia who maintains a Web site devoted to the issue of deportation at www.deportableguy.org. Uch spent his early childhood years “struggling in the Thailand refugee camps” before arriving in the United States and was raised by his mother in a housing project in Seattle.

He committed a crime in 1994 and was sentenced. After his release from prison in 1997, he faced deportation, but Cambodia did not accept criminal deportations of its citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service put him in detention for another two-and-a-half years under the 1996 immigration law, requiring deportable aliens to remain in federal custody until deported. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that aliens could not be detained indefinitely.

In 2002, Cambodia agreed to accept deportees by signing an agreement with the U.S.

Uch told the crowd, “I, along with 2,000 Cambodian Americans, could be deported at any time. “I have done well since my release. I have a stable job and a beautiful baby girl. … My daughter is a citizen,” he added. “What about her right to have her father?”

James Tabafunda can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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