Growing Up In the U.S., Then Sent To Cambodia
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — It was fish for breakfast and fish for lunch and fish for dinner. “I hate fish,” Khan Hin said. What Mr. Hin wanted was a burger. Maybe a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Or some Tater Tots. “I’m feisty,” he said, “for my Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”
Mr. Hin’s palate is American. His vernacular, slang from the streets of Stockton, California, is American.
But Mr. Hin, 33, isn’t American. Born in a Thai refugee camp, he came to the United States as a baby. His parents, refugees fleeing genocide in Cambodia, never claimed citizenship for their son. Until he was jailed at age 18 for auto theft, Mr. Hin had no idea he was only a legal permanent resident.
American law is uncompromising: Deportation applies to legal permanent residents who commit an aggravated felony in the United States. Such crimes include failing to appear in court or filing a false tax return, as well as more serious offenses. Deportees are barred from returning to the United States.
Mr. Hin had served five years and was holding down a job when Immigration and Customs Enforcement came for him. Three years ago, he was deported to Cambodia. It was his first time in the country. He did not speak Khmer, the local language.
That’s how Mr. Hin ended up on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, in the house of a family friend he couldn’t understand, eating fish three meals a day.
“It was rats, pigs, babies all over the place,” he said. “It was the ghetto but badder. This ain’t home. America’s my home.”
While President Donald J. Trump has brought renewed attention to the fate of legal and illegal immigrants alike, deportations of Cambodians began in 2002. So far, around 600 legal permanent residents of Cambodian descent have been deported from the United States, many directly from prison. The number is likely to increase this year, as Mr. Trump cracks down on immigrants with criminal records.
Posy Chheng was deported last May, just a couple weeks after his son was born. His wife grew up in Minnesota farm country and knew nothing about the terror unleashed by the Khmer Rouge, when at least 1.7 million Cambodians died by execution, disease or starvation in the late 1970s. When he was 14, Mr. Chheng was convicted of second- degree murder and imprisoned for 17 years. After his release five years ago, he worked as a barber in St. Paul and spent time with his mother, who had raised four children on her own. His own son is still in Minnesota. “I think about him all the time,” Mr. Chheng said.
Asian immigrants are often regarded as a model minority in the United States, with higher education and income levels than others. But the 270,000 people of Cambodian descent are among the poorest in the country. Many Cambodian refugees were farmers who fled the Khmer Rouge with no schooling or savings. Once in the United States, they scrambled to get menial jobs, like packing fruit or sewing clothes.
Cambodian refugees, along with Vietnamese and Laotians, were often resettled in tough neighborhoods. By the 1980s, their children had formed street gangs.
“We had to protect ourselves from homeboy shootouts,” said Ricky Kul, who was 15 when he joined the Oriental Lazy Boyz in Los Angeles and was later jailed for burglary.
Some deportees have taken their own lives or been caught dealing drugs. But Mr. Kul, who was deported two years ago, now manages a bar in Phnom Penh. “If I wasn’t here, I might be dead,” Mr. Kul, 42, said. “Leaving America kind of forced me to turn my life around.”
The one thing he misses is his mother, who has diabetes. Modern Phnom Penh, with its Domino’s Pizza outlets and air- conditioned malls, would be unimaginable for his mother, he admitted. Her memories of home are of Khmer Rouge era bombs and dead bodies.
“I’m going to get myself on my feet,” Mr. Kul said, “and then I’m going to bring her here and show her, ‘Look at my life, look at Cambodia.’ She can finally be proud.”