An increasing number of immigrants from Southeast Asia in the counties of Los Angeles and Orange whose deportation orders are indefinite for years are held and, in some cases, expelled after taking routine vouchers in the American and customs immigration offices, according to the lawyers of immigrants and the advocacy groups.
In recent months, a certain number of Cambodian, Laotians and Vietnamese immigrants have been informed that the deportation orders that have remained – in some cases for decades – are now applied while the Trump administration is looking to increase the number of deportations.
Targeted immigrants are generally people who have been found guilty of a crime after their arrival in the United States, which makes them eligible for expulsion after their release from prison or prison. In most cases, Ice has never followed deportations because immigrants had lived in the United States long enough for their country of origin to recognize them as citizens, or as is the case with Laos, the country of origin does not easily publish repatriation documents.
Instead, under long-standing policies, these immigrants have been authorized to stay in the United States with the condition that they registered with ICE agents regularly to show that they worked and stayed in difficulty. Checks usually start every month, but over time become an annual visit.
According to the caucus of Asian law, in 2024, there were approximately 15,100 Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese nationals living in this situation through the United States
“People are very worried about their checks. They devote themselves to complying with their declaration requirements and want to continue to comply as they have been doing for years, but they are also afraid of reporting according to what they have seen in the news,” said Lee Ann Felder-Heim, lawyer for the caucus of Asian law.
Connie Chung Joe, director general of Asian Americans, progressed the Southern California judge, said that last month, his organization was informed of at least 17 community members in the counties of Los Angeles and Orange who went for planned checks, to be detained or expelled.
“These are people who have been here for decades,” said Chung Joe. “It breaks the community and their families.”
The County of Orange houses the largest diaspora of the Vietnamese outside their country of origin, including many refugees who fled the fall of Saigon. The little county Saigon houses more than 100,000 Vietnamese Americans. In addition, tens of thousands of Cambodians and Laotians settled in the Los Angeles region, according to the Pew Research Center.
Many refugees in Southeast Asia have been given to their child, and not all have obtained adequate support by facing the upheavals, said Laura Urias, director of the immigrant Defenders Law Center. Some fell with gangs while they were fighting to assimilate, and it was then that they were taken in the penal system.
Although they may have been in trouble to their youth, said Urias, many served their time and continued to obtain jobs and to scrape themselves.
In one case, a Cambodian immigrant went for his ice registration and came out with the order to produce a plane ticket for Cambodia within 60 days, she said. Urias said that none of the Center customers had been expelled at this stage, but that she had heard of people without legal representation who were expelled after a registration.
“This is certainly something that we have not really seen before,” said Urias. “He alignments with the global message with which this administration came – threatening to expel as many people as possible.”
The Ministry of Internal Security, which oversees the ice, has not answered a list of questions from Times on the reasons for the change of policy and if the countries of origin of immigrants will accept them.
Urias said it suspects that the imminent price threats from the Trump administration have made certain countries more willing to cooperate and accept the deportees.
Richard Wilner said that his firm, Wilner & O’Reilly, in Orange, had seen an increase in requests for consultation from the families of detained immigrants. His business does not take care of customers who have been found guilty of serious crimes such as sexual offenses and murder.
“In the past two weeks, I have received more phone calls than I have done in the past 15 years or more, because people are arrested,” he said.
He added that he had not been able to understand why some immigrants with delayed deportation orders are targeted for withdrawal and not others.
“They are people with exceptional deportation orders, some of whom have continued to lead a remarkable life, have founded families, businesses, good people. Others then rejected,” he said. “I don’t know what are the parameters, because not everyone gets caught up in recording.”
California Daily Newspapers
