Thread: ICE arrests two Cambodians in SF as advocates protest deportations

ICE arrests two Cambodians in SF as advocates protest deportations

Tatiana Sanchez
Oct. 3, 2019 Updated: Oct. 3, 2019 4:37 p.m.


1of6Poly Poang lights incense at a Thursday demonstration in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices on Sansome Street, San Francisco.Photo: Photos by Paul Chinn / The Chronicle


2of6Poly Poang lights incense at a Thursday demonstration in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices on Sansome Street, San Francisco.Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle


3of6Demonstrators gather in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices on Sansome Street.Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle

About 50 community advocates and Cambodians rallied at ICE headquarters in San Francisco Thursday, joining groups across the nation to protest the ongoing arrests of refugees who fled the country decades ago.

By noon, organizers had gotten word that two Cambodian men ordered to report to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement on Sansome Street that morning — Saman Pho of Oakland and Sakun Phok of San Jose — had been detained.

Dozens of Cambodians across the country have received summonses in recent weeks to report to immigration authorities for removal — the sixth round of raids against this community, according to advocates.

The plight of undocumented immigrants from Cambodia has been the focus of heated debate for about two years as the Trump administration cracks down on immigrants who committed crimes. Advocates say dozens of people have been detained and deported in unprecedented numbers to Cambodia — a country they barely know, having come to the U.S. at a much younger age.

“They are core members of their families who are working, supporting their families and their children, their elders. When they are taken away and detained and potentially deported, that destabilizes the family,” said Angela Chan, an attorney and policy director at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.

ICE deported 80 Cambodians in the 2019 fiscal year, of whom 70 were convicted criminals, the agency said. As of Sept. 21, there were 1,764 non-detained Cambodians nationals with a final order of removal in the U.S., of whom 1,276 were convicted criminals. Spokesman Paul Prince confirmed Pho and Phok were taken into custody Thursday.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fully respects the Constitutional rights of all people to peacefully express their opinions,” said Prince in a statement Thursday, following the rally. “That being said, ICE remains committed to performing its immigration enforcement mission consistent with federal law and agency policy.”

The vast majority of the Cambodians slated for deportation came to the U.S. in the late 1970s, fleeing a genocide under the Khmer Rouge regime that killed about 2 million people.

Many of these immigrants said they landed in impoverished neighborhoods in America, where opportunities were limited and they were bullied for being immigrants. They turned to drugs, gangs and crime to fit in, decisions that got them locked up for years and cost them their visas.

Pho is a construction worker and father of four who was convicted of attempted murder more than 20 years ago.

He arrived in the U.S. with his family in 1982 at age 6. The family lived in several refugee camps after fleeing Cambodia. Pho has asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for a pardon, which wouldn’t absolve him of his crime but would potentially allow him to stay in the U.S.

Phok, a grandfather with convictions in Fresno and Santa Clara counties, pleaded guilty to domestic violence about two decades ago, according to a community organizer.

In the past, immigrants in this situation have been allowed to stay in the United States, but the Trump administration has been pressing Cambodia and a handful of other uncooperative countries to take back their deportees.

“There is a lot of PTSD (Post-traumatic Stress Disorder) in this community because of them having survived the genocide in Cambodia,” said Chan. “Thinking that one of their loved ones will be deported back to that country, where they don’t have a support network, that’s also very traumatic to the community members here.”

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