Cambodians given deportation notices

LOWELL, Mass. — Asian groups in the United States are objecting to the efforts of President Donald Trump’s administration to step up deportations of Cambodians, as dozens of refugees with criminal convictions are being ordered to report to federal officials this week for removal.

At least 20 people in California have been served notices to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin the deportation process, according to Ny Nourn, a San Francisco-based community advocate with the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus. The state is home to the largest population of Cambodians in the U.S.

In Massachusetts, the state with the nation’s second-largest Cambodian community, at least 10 residents have received them, said Bethany Li, director of Greater Boston Legal Services’ Asian Outreach Unit.

Cambodians living in Minnesota, Texas, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin have also been issued the orders, said Elaine Sanchez Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington, D.C.

Activists of Asian descent are planning demonstrations in San Francisco, Sacramento and Boston this week. They argue that many of those facing deportation served criminal sentences years and in some cases decades ago, when they were troubled young refugees struggling to adjust to a new country after their families fled Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime.

The deportations have been happening since about 2002, when Cambodia agreed to begin repatriating refugees convicted of felony crimes in the U.S.

But they’ve risen sharply since Trump took office and imposed visa sanctions on Cambodia and a handful of other nations in order to compel them to speed up the process.

The result has been a roughly 280% increase, from 29 removals in federal fiscal year 2017 to 110 in federal fiscal 2018, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data.

Through the current fiscal year, which ends Monday, 80 Cambodians have been removed, the agency told The Associated Press last week. There are nearly 1,800 Cambodians with final removal orders living in the country.

“ICE fully respects the Constitutional rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement in response to the planned demonstrations. “That being said, ICE remains committed to performing its immigration enforcement mission consistent with federal law and agency policy.”