Hundreds of people rallied Friday (Nov. 1) in support of Cambodian refugees threatened with deportation under the Trump administrations crackdown on immigrants and refugees.
About 120 people gathered in Sacramento to protest the practice of handing Cambodians released from prison into the hands of immigration authorities and to ask California Gov. Gavin Newsom to pardon the Cambodians who had already served their time in detention. Similar rallies occurred in San Francisco, Massachusetts, Washington, Boston and Rhode Island
Data shows the number of deportations of Cambodians over the past two fiscal years has seen a 279 percent increase, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Immigrant rights groups called for Newsom to end policies they say ease the transfer of prison inmates to federal authorities despite California’s efforts to provide a sanctuary to those who are in the country illegally.
The groups asked Newsom to stop prison officials from holding parolees until they can be picked up by federal immigration officials. They criticized him for vetoing legislation that would have barred private security companies from coming onto prison grounds to pick up immigrants for deportation.
California passed a law in 2017 barring local and state agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities over those who have committed certain crimes, mostly misdemeanors, but critics said the law doesn’t apply to the state prison system.
Southeast Asian refugees represent the largest refugee community ever to be resettled in the United States, after being forcefully displaced by U.S. war and its aftermath in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the 1970s.
Refugees were often resettled in urban centers of concentrated poverty with few social or economic supports. Families struggled to help their children navigate failing schools and racialized bullying. Southeast Asian American young people were disproportionately swept into gangs and violence.
As a result, today Southeast Asian refugees are at least three times more likely to be deported on the basis of an old criminal conviction, compared to other immigrants.
Because of the collaboration between the Dept. of California Rehabilitation and Corrections with ICE, after serving years in state prison, instead of returning to their families, immigrants who are found suitable for parole are directly transferred into ICE jails that are fraught with inhumane abuse and with little access to legal representation.
“The Trump Administration and its ICE cronies continue to terrorize our communities,” Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco told the Sacramento Bee. “It is cruel to target those who have lived in this country for many years, who have families that depend on them, and who have paid their debt to society. We must come together to protect our friends and loved ones.”
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