Cambodia

2 Pages 618 Words

DEPORTATION OF CAMBODIANS FROM THE UNITED STATES

ACTION ALERT - CONTACT YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS NOW
BACKGROUND INFORMATION, TALKING POINTS, ETC.

Background:
Recently, the U.S. Department of State announced that Cambodia will accept Cambodians who have been convicted of crimes in the United States. SEARAC calls for a hold on deportation until cases can be reviewed by the INS to ensure fairness in the deportation process. Many Southeast Asians that SEARAC has been in contact with accepted orders of removal in exchange for supervised release. Unaware that this repatriation agreement would be signed in the immediate future, many Cambodian detainees did not pursue appeals on their deportation orders. In these cases many Cambodians did not have their cases heard by a judge and thoroughly reviewed.

This international agreement has the potential to harm large numbers of Cambodians in the United States - citizens as well as people who have not become citizens yet:
According to Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) statistics, nearly 1,400 Cambodians have been issued “final orders of removal” and could be deported quickly.
A SEARAC survey recently discovered that over half of those potential deportees are the main income-earners for their families, which typically include members who are American citizens and children.
According to statistics from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), 145,149 refugees entered the U.S. from Cambodia between 1975 and 1999. According to INS statistics, 46,455 people from Cambodia had naturalized to become U.S. citizens. These statistics lead us to believe that nearly 100,000 Cambodians in the U.S. arrived as refugees and are not now citizens. All of them are at danger of deportation if they were convicted of a crime that makes them deportable - whether they actually committed the crime or not. These crimes can include shoplifting, marijuana possession, and driving while in...