Release sought for 2 men facing deportation
Family and friends of two Bay Area men raised in the United States and facing deportation to the countries of their birth held a rally in San Francisco Wednesday demanding justice and their release.
Daniel Maher, 41, of Berkeley, who came to the U.S. from China at the age of 2, has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since June, waiting to find out whether he will be sent back to a country he barely knows. Maher, the manager of a nonprofit Berkeley recycling program, speaks neither Mandarin nor Cantonese.
Chea Bou, 35, of Oakland, who came to the United States as a Cambodian refugee at the age of 11, was ordered to be deported in March.
Both men were flagged by ICE officials for deportation because of crimes they served prison time for while in this country — Maher for an armed robbery 15 years ago, and Bou for a concealed weapons conviction in 1993 and a drug conspiracy case in 2013.
But supporters of the two men, who held a 10 a.m. rally outside the ICE office on Sansome Street, say they have paid their debt to society, should not be branded threats to national security and don’t deserve to be sent back to countries that are foreign to them.
“If there’s compelling circumstances that you are not a public safety threat, you’re not supposed to be a priority” for deportation, said Bou’s lawyer, Anoop Prasad of the Asian Law Caucus.
Bou’s wife, Sambath Nhep, teared up while speaking of her husband through a megaphone. She said she hasn’t seen him in more than a year. “He calls me every day,” she said softly. “Every day.”